Which Of Two Tactics Will Ukraine’s Commander-In-Chief Zaluzhny Choose For 2024?

Analysis of the Ukrainian colonel.

Western media write about two possible plans of the Ukrainian Armed Forces for the next year. The Welt publication believes that Ukraine still has many reserves left and the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny is preparing a new counter-offensive.

In turn, Bild describes Ukraine’s tactics in three words: kill, kill and kill again, saying that the main plan of the Ukrainian Armed Forces for 2024 is active defense.

Where is the truth? The website Charter97.org addressed this question to Ukrainian military analyst, reserve colonel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Petro Chernik:

— I am more inclined to the second version, I will explain why. We are in the classic third stage of industrial warfare. Here it is worth mentioning the first two stages: a brilliant defeat (up to 10 days) and the so-called blitzkrieg (1 - 1.5 months). There is also a protracted blitzkrieg (up to 4 months), for example, how the Italians defeated the Greeks in the 1940s.

Everything that comes next is from 1 year to 8 years. The most classic industrial war of the 20th century is the Iran-Iraq war. I am in no way saying that the Russian-Ukrainian war will last that long, but we have definitely entered an industrial war.

The main feature of this war is the grinding down of the enemy’s forces and means. Unfortunately, we were not given long-range missiles in sufficient quantities (everyone wrote about ATACMS though). They also do not provide enough aviation, which can turn the tide of the war. We have no choice but to destroy the enemy’s personnel (the indicators are already unprecedented) and their equipment. I would like to note that if at the moment we take all the equipment that was in the warehouses of the Russian Federation as 100%, then we have already destroyed somewhere around 40%.

Indeed, when it comes to armored vehicles and artillery, they have colossal reserves — the largest in the world.

At the moment, everything depends on the political will of our Western allies. We need a lot of aviation and ATACMS to break the tide of the war. The Americans have all this: more than 4.5 thousand F-16s have been produced. More than 2.5 thousand of them are in working order. There are also thousands of missiles and bombs for this machine in warehouses. ATACMS in warehouses from 3 to 4 thousand different modifications.

— What is the reason that weapons are not supplied in the required volume?

— Firstly, there is a fear that Putin might cross the line in terms of nuclear weapons. Secondly, the proliferation of tactical nuclear weapons. Prigozhin had tactical nuclear ammunition and artillery shells at the nuclear warehouse in Voronezh. Imagine one shell falling into the wrong hands. It doesn't even need to be undermined. It is enough to blow it up by covering it with explosives, say, somewhere in New York. We understand what kind of apocalypse can happen on the stock exchange.

Thirdly, there is a new monster — China. Imagine the gigantic Siberian resources: oil, gas, gold and the most valuable resource — the fresh water of Lake Baikal. This all goes to China. Will they go crazy with so many resources? They will. And they are no better than the Russians, and if so, then we have no choice but to methodically and scrupulously grind down the enemy’s troops.

The breakdown will definitely come. This simply cannot but happen, but the question is when, under what circumstances and in whose favor.

No less fierce battles await us ahead than those we have now. The strategic threat for us is human potential. There are 140 million Russians, and 30 million of us Ukrainians. At the moment, we are holding on solely thanks to high-quality weapons, the skill of our soldiers, and powerful motivation.

But man is exhausting, so our allies need to be more decisive in providing us with better weapons: aircraft with enough missiles and bomb loads, and a large number of long-range missiles. All this needs to be enhanced with modern electronic warfare equipment and multiplied by a huge number of drones.

In this case, we will be able to change the front. But, unfortunately, we will not do this on our own. Let me emphasize that we need more determination from our European allies, and especially from the United States.

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