“HOLD, BUILD, AND STRIKE: A VISION FOR REBUILDING UKRAINE’S ADVANTAGE IN 2024”
“This winter, Ukraine’s military is visibly running on fumes, as recent reporting shows M109 Paladin artillery outside Bakhmut receiving only smoke shells for ammunition. When we were last there in November, shell hunger was widespread along the front, and the situation has only gotten worse. Following months of hard fighting, Ukraine’s offensive in 2023 proved a missed opportunity. The current situation is also not sustainable long term. It is clear Ukraine and the West need a new strategic vision. This means planning beyond the next six months or the next offensive operation. While the current state of the war has been described as a stalemate, spurring an animated debate over what that means, Russia holds material, industrial, and manpower advantages in 2024, along with the initiative. However, with tailored Western support, Ukraine could hold against Russian forces this year and rebuild the necessary advantage to conduct large-scale offensive operations in 2025, recreating another opportunity to deal Russia a battlefield defeat. Conversely, without major adjustments, or if Western support falters, the current path holds a high risk of exhaustion over time and Ukraine being forced to negotiate with Moscow from a position of weakness.
Currently, Ukraine is focused on reconstitution and digging in to defend against continued Russian attacks. Western supplies of artillery ammunition have diminished significantly, leading to shell hunger across the front. After spending several months on the offensive, Ukraine lacks enough artillery ammunition and combat-effective units to go back on the offensive any time soon. Russian forces have seized the initiative along stretches of the front, but they too have struggled to make progress. Although Ukraine’s summer offensive failed to achieve its minimum goals, Russia’s winter offensive last year, and lackluster attacks this fall, also failed to achieve a breakthrough. The year 2023 ended with Russia taking marginally more territory than Ukraine, but it is still far from its official goal of seizing the entire Donbas. Territorial control is one measure of progress toward one’s objectives, but the balance of attrition, capacity for reconstitution, defense industrial mobilization, and the ability to employ force effectively at scale are more important determinants of long-term success. This is why what happens in 2024 is likely to determine the future trajectory of the war.
Uncertainty over Western military and economic assistance means Ukraine needs to further husband its resources and make hard decisions in 2024. Yet despite this gloomy reality, with Western support Ukraine can regenerate combat power and possibly retake the advantage in 2025. If this year is used wisely, core problems are addressed, and the right lessons are applied from the 2023 offensive, Ukraine can take another shot at inflicting a major defeat on Russian forces. However, this demands a new strategy, premised on three central elements: hold, build, and strike. Holding will require a well-prepared defense, consolidating, and rationalizing the Ukrainian armed forces’ diverse park of equipment. Building focuses on reconstituting force quality, training, and expanding defense industrial capacity. Finally, the strike element will degrade Russian advantages and create challenges for Russian forces far behind the front lines, as Ukraine works on rebuilding its capacity to resume offensive operations. Ideally, Ukraine can absorb Russian offensives while minimizing casualties and position itself to retake the advantage over time.
A Better Vision
The strategic context in 2024 is starkly different from that of 2023. Kyiv is unlikely to have the artillery ammunition, manpower, or equipment for another strategic offensive. Conversely, Russia will be materially advantaged in 2024, and Russian spending on national defense, at 10.8 trillion rubles, is a substantial increase over previous years, bringing it officially to 6 percent of gross domestic product (various estimates put the real figure at 8 percent). This may not be enough to offer Moscow a decisive edge on the battlefield, but Russia has made a structural shift in the economy toward significantly increased spending on national defense, converting energy export revenue into defense industrial mobilization. No less important, in 2023, Russia was able to replace its losses and generate additional combat power over time. This included managing to recruit contract soldiers for new formations (not just mobilizing soldiers). Russian forces may experience similar difficulties in overcoming Ukraine’s defenses in 2024 as they did in 2023, but Russian advantages will begin to mount over the course of this year and the next.
This is why the strategy should begin with a hold to hedge against Russian offensives this year, and relative advantages in materiel. This consists of, first, building a more fortified defense-in-depth, which will make it easier to defend the nearly 1,000-kilometer front line, allowing Ukraine to rotate forces, free up its best units, and reduce the ammunition required to defend. Ukraine has started to dig in, but these efforts are nascent when compared to the defense-in-depth fortified positions established by Russian forces. Russia has dedicated engineering brigades that construct and improve fortifications, whereas in the Ukrainian military, defenses are the responsibility of each maneuver brigade. Stronger defenses, including underground bunkers and tunnels, will also compensate for Russia’s advantage in artillery and glide bombs. This will also require the right policies in place, since defenses have to be coordinated with regional authorities, property issues must be addressed, and so forth. This may be surprising, but in Ukraine, farming and business activity carries on close to the front, as two of us observed during our field research.
Holding is about not just positional defense, but also consolidation. This year can be used to consolidate and rationalize the force. With Western support and transfer of industrial capacity like 3D printing machines, Ukraine can increasingly maintain and produce new components for Western kit. Ukraine has a combination of military– and volunteer-run repair and upgrade facilities involved in helping to maintain the force. However, Ukraine received a diverse arsenal of equipment from Western countries, with 14 different types of artillery as just one example. In 2023, this diversity was further increased with Western tanks (Leopard, Challenger, and Abrams variants), infantry fighting vehicles, various types of mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles, and so on. This makes for a logistical and maintenance nightmare, which reduces the amount of equipment that is serviceable at any one time. Given the critical role played by private charities like Come Back Alive and the Prytula Foundation, greater cooperation between them and Western governments and defense companies would help keep Western equipment serviceable.
Second, Ukraine will have to revisit its policies on mobilization and recruitment to address long-standing issues in the structure and quality of its forces.”
“the German MOD confirmed the delivery of a second PATRIOT battery to Ukraine with 56 interceptors.”
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