Americans Saved Ukraine's Kharkov Offensive From Debacle in Broad Front Strike

Stopped Ukraine from making Russia's mistake, even Biden admin got involved

The plan for Ukraine’s wildly successful Kharkov offensive in September that retook nearly 10,000 square kilometers (size of Vermont) in just 6 days was thought up by Ukraine’s general Sirsky.

However, originally the Ukrainians were not going to go with Sirsky’s plan. Originally Kiev was bent on something even bigger. — An attack on a broad front from the Russian border all the way to the Dnieper river.

The main focus wasn’t even going to be in Kharkov and Kherson, but in Zaporozhye aiming to cut the land corridor to Crimea. This was a scheme that was almost certain to fail precisely on the account of its excessive ambition.

The Ukrainians were going to make the exact same mistake the Russians committed in February and March when they dissipated their strength along too many axes of attack.

It wasn’t until a lengthy American intervention that Zelensky’s people allowed the Ukrainian arm to try something more limited and realistic instead — which then turned out to be a smashing success.

WaPo has the story:

To decide how to go about the operation, Ukrainian commanders arrived in Germany last July for a war-gaming session with their American and British counterparts.

At the time, the Ukrainians were considering a far broader counteroffensive across the entire southern front, including a drive to the coast in the Zaporizhzhia region that would sever Moscow’s coveted “land bridge” connecting mainland Russia with Crimea, which was illegally annexed in 2014.

In a room full of maps and spreadsheets, the Ukrainians ran their own “tabletop exercise,” describing the order of battle — what formations they would use, where the units would go and in what sequence — and the likely Russian response.

The American and British war-gamers ran their own simulations using the same inputs but different software and analysis. They couldn’t get the operation to work.

Given the numbers of Ukrainian troops and available stockpiles of ammunition, the planners concluded that the Ukrainians would exhaust their combat power before achieving the offensive’s objectives.

“This was them asking for our advice,” said a senior U.S. defense official, who like others in this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military planning. “And our advice was, ‘Hey, guys, you’re going to bite off more than you can chew. This isn’t going to work out well.’”

Beyond the risk of running out of steam, a Zaporizhzhia offensive might have pushed Ukrainian forces into a pocket the Russians could surround with reinforcements sent along two axes, from Crimea and Russia.

“Our commanders thought the Ukrainians left pretty determined that they were going to do the whole thing anyway — there was a lot of pressure to do the whole thing,” the defense official said.

The White House reiterated the U.S. military’s analysis in talks with Zelensky’s office.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan talked to the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, about the plans for a broad southern counteroffensive, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The Ukrainians accepted the advice and undertook a narrower campaign focused on Kherson city, which sits on the west side of the Dnieper River, separated from Russian-held territory to the east.

“I give the Ukrainians a lot of credit,” the defense official said. “They allowed reality to move them toward a more limited set of objectives in Kherson. And they were nimble enough to exploit an opportunity in the north. That’s a lot.”

Russia Is Trying to Advance Along Too Many Axes at Once and It’s Showing

Tarmo 🇨🇿 🇺🇦 🇫🇮 🇪🇺 NAFO ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ @TarmoFella

AFU 🇺🇦 counter-offensive in Kharkiv region for the last three days 🔥