While Ukraine fights for its freedom, Western armaments lie dormant in warehouses and hangers

HAMISH DE BRETTON-GORDON 28 July 2023 • 3:11pm

The Ukraine counteroffensive is the most widely discussed yet misrepresented event currently taking place on the globe. A tsunami of Russian disinformation and propaganda is being absorbed and repackaged by armchair generals across the world, suggesting it is poorly planned and executed.

Nothing could be further from the truth, but the harsh reality is that it must not fail. Failure would not just be a disaster for Ukraine but the entire democratic world. The success of this illegal invasion would be a green light to every other despot, tyrant and terror organisation to do what they will to further their despicable aims, as Putin is doing. It would destabilise the rules-based order and encourage the likes of North Korea and Iran to engage in land grabs, likely with the encouragement and support of a buoyant Russia.  

One accurate comparison is that this counteroffensive involves a scale and complexity of the Normandy landings in WW2, when the free world kicked out the last fascist to illegally invade Europe. This took years to plan, months for the initial phases and over twelve months to complete. Ukraine has only had a few months to plan, and the execution is in its early stages.

Unlike the Allies in 1944, Ukraine has needed to plan and execute with at least one arm tied behind its back. The Ukrainians have excellent western armoured fighting vehicles, but their training in the most difficult art of combined arms manoeuvre has been restricted due to security and lack of places to train. Preparation of the battlefield, by deep strikes on logistic nodes and command centres, has been limited to the number of Himars and Storm Shadow missiles made available from Nato stocks.

This shortage of deep strike capabilities has allowed the Russians to prepare almost unhindered a defensive line of trenches and minefields of a scale and depth hitherto unseen. I suspect, when NATO reviews its support in the years to come, the major failing identified will be the ponderous response to the call to arm Ukraine. It took months to get long range artillery and modern tanks to the frontline, and there has been a serious lack of air cover. Western jets, most importantly the ubiquitous F-16s, lie dormant in hangers around Europe and the US when they could be shooting down Russians.

The US and UK threw their support behind Ukraine swiftly and robustly, but other Nato countries have drip fed capability when it should have been pouring in. If there were now 100 or so F-16s flying in Ukrainian colours, the offensive would be going at a gallop rather than a canter.  

The offensive will take longer than most anticipate, but it is clear that the detailed and critical groundwork is being done by Ukrainian armoured formations. At some stage, and I judge soon, they will punch through the Russian defence lines and retake the Crimea and the East. Timid Western leaders, fearful of nuclear escalation, need to understand that this is not an option to Putin, and that they must give Ukraine everything it needs to succeed.