Pentagon leaks? Ukrainians more focused on must-win battle.
| DNIPRO REGION, UKRAINE
The light infantry soldiers training on grounds ringed by forests say they are not deterred by the fact that Ukraine’s much-anticipated spring offensive will be a critical inflection point in their war with Russia. Nor, they say, by the fact that roughly 70% of their ranks enter that fight with little combat experience.
And neither, they add, are they deterred by leaked Pentagon assessments that the counteroffensive could fall “well short” of Kyiv’s war aims.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onIn war, as in life, it’s perhaps best to focus on what you hope to control. This is why Ukrainian troops preparing for an important spring offensive are choosing to shrug off the Pentagon leaks story.
“It doesn’t matter if there is a leak; we will still have to liberate our country,” says Col. Yurii Bereza, commander of the Dnipro-1 battalion. “It’s still a job we have to do, so [the leak] doesn’t influence me or my soldiers,” he adds. “We must win this war saving as many of the lives of our soldiers as possible.”
The Pentagon’s early February assessment warned that Ukraine’s counteroffensive would likely achieve only “modest territorial gains.”
“Definitely, when you read this not-so-optimistic assessment, it is not good,” says Mykola Bielieskov at Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies in Kyiv. “But I think troops understand the stakes. They understand why this offensive is extremely important, [that] it’s their territory, their people, and that we need to recover as much territory as possible.”
With an expected Ukrainian spring counteroffensive looming, military drone pilots work on their targeting in a training camp ringed by forests.
Again and again, to simulate an on-the-fly attack on Russian troops and trenches, the soldiers attach dummy grenades to a small flying drone, fly it to altitude, then release the dud ordnance while in motion.
Again and again, the grenades thud into the moist earth near the target, prompting cheers or jeers from fellow troops, as they prepare for the high-stakes battle to come.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onIn war, as in life, it’s perhaps best to focus on what you hope to control. This is why Ukrainian troops preparing for an important spring offensive are choosing to shrug off the Pentagon leaks story.
These light infantry volunteer soldiers of the 500-strong Dnipro-1 battalion say they are not deterred by the fact that the counteroffensive will be a critical inflection point in a war that began with Russia’s invasion 14 months ago. Nor, they say, by the fact that roughly 70% of their ranks – fresh replacements for wounded soldiers – enter that fight with little combat experience.
And neither, they add, are they deterred by leaked Pentagon assessments suggesting that the counteroffensive could fall “well short” of Kyiv’s war aims.
“It doesn’t matter if there is a leak; we will still have to liberate our country and go into a counter-offensive,” says Col. Yurii Bereza, the Dnipro-1 battalion commander.
“We know what we have to do: it is [recapture] Luhansk, Donetsk, Crimea, occupied areas of Kherson region,” says Colonel Bereza, who has held five separate battalion commands since the mid-1990s.
“It’s still a job we have to do, so [the leak] doesn’t influence me or my soldiers. ... We don’t pay attention to it at all,” he says. “For me, the fact is that we will win this war – I understand that. But we must win this war saving as many of the lives of our soldiers as possible.”
The Pentagon’s early February assessment said Ukraine faced “force generation and sustainment shortfalls,” and warned that its counteroffensive would likely achieve only “modest territorial gains.” The leaked document, labeled “Top Secret,” was first described by The Washington Post.
“Definitely, when you read this not-so-optimistic assessment, it is not good,” says Mykola Bielieskov, a research fellow at Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies in Kyiv.
“But I think troops understand the stakes,” he says. “They understand why this offensive is extremely important, [that] it’s their territory, their people, and that we need to recover as much territory as possible to be as viable as possible, to sustain the positive cycle with successes that multiply and prolong Western assistance.”
Ukrainian officials have affirmed that some leaked information is true – such as shortages of weaponry, artillery shells, and ammunition – and has been spoken of publicly for months. Other details they dismiss as irrelevant, inaccurate, or out of date.
Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told Ukrainian TV broadcasters that speculation in the leaked documents, especially about the counteroffensive, is “utterly baseless,” and would not affect military planning because there are multiple options and “everything will be decided at the last moment.”
The documents date from February and March, when photographs of them were first uploaded onto a small chatroom for gamers run by a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman, Jack Teixeira, who has been arrested for mishandling classified documents.
The leaked intelligence includes information about Western-supplied military equipment and concerns about Ukraine’s dwindling stocks of artillery shells.
But U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has sought to reassure Ukraine – which has received tens of billions of dollars’ worth of American military and economic assistance alone to defend itself – that it has “much of the capability” it needs “to continue to be successful.”
That is no surprise for many in Ukraine, whose armed forces repeatedly have over-performed in pushing back against the more numerous and heavily equipped Russians.
Ukrainian successes last year – repulsing the Russian advance on Kyiv, the lightning recapture of swaths of the northeast Kharkiv region, and liberation of the southern city of Kherson – have meanwhile set the bar high for a new advance.
Russia’s own winter offensive in the eastern Donbas made only marginal headway and failed to capture all of the city of Bakhmut, despite significant losses on both sides. But Russia has built new and extensive fortifications in Crimea and elsewhere, in a bid to stall Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
Noting that the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff have made “major mistakes” by underestimating Ukraine’s fighting agility in previous assessments, Mr. Bielieskov, the research fellow, says the same may be true in the leaked documents, which apply a “gold standard” that, for example, requires air superiority and other assets for success.
“It is all relative,” he says. “And the most important relativity is that Ukrainians need to be superior to the current Russian forces – not some ideal Russian forces.”
He suggests that Russian forces are somewhat stretched, calculating a maximum of 300,000 troops along a 340-mile front.
“When people are saying there are a lot of obstacles, a lot of engineering work done, that’s right,” says Mr. Bielieskov. “Well, we need to penetrate their defenses in a couple of places only – we don’t need to destroy the whole line of defense. We just need to penetrate, and then outperform them, to keep the tempo of the offensive quicker than their countermeasures apply.
“That’s why we need a lot of preparation, a lot of intelligence, a lot of synchronization of actions,” he adds. “But it’s within [Ukraine’s] capabilities.”
And those improving capabilities are clear in the Dnipro-1 battalion training in the central Dnipro region as it recovers and rebuilds strength after 11 months of intense combat.
With just 22 killed-in-action, and an active tactical medicine program to save lives in combat, the battalion boasts an exceptional survival rate in a conflict defined by a high death toll.
The Pentagon leaks are “totally irrelevant, because you never know,” says a NATO-trained Polish instructor who has volunteered with the unit since last spring and helped overhaul its tactical medical training.
“The way we operate is way more flexible than they are, and that is our strength,” says the former Polish officer, who uses the nickname Batman and wears a beard and a tattoo up his right arm.
“The Russians don’t have the capacity to change their orders while they are conducting an operation. We have that capacity,” says Batman. “We can tell the guys to go to A, B, and C. And while they are at B, we can tell them to go to X, Y, and Z. And [the Russians] never knew what hit them. We just adapt to overcome.”
Motivation is another factor of the Ukrainian troops that he has trained, especially, to provide emergency life-saving medical assistance for hours during bouts of Russian shelling.
“We’re bending over backwards to make ends meet in training,” says Batman. “But they are motivated. ...
“We do our bit to make sure Ukrainians have far fewer casualties than the Russians,” he adds. “And if we teach them how to do it, they will do it. They just need to be given the chance to train, and given the tools to do it.”
Such attention has helped keep the Ukrainian battlefield death toll to half that of the Russian side, according to Western casualty estimates.
Maksym Usoltsev, a soldier who put his work as a prosecutor on hold to volunteer for the Dnipro-1 battalion one year ago, says he’s ready for the counteroffensive, leaks or not.
“I don’t see that we have a choice; this is a question of the existence of our nation, our independence, our freedom,” he says.
“Our only task here is to free our territories and win this war. We will do this, regardless of any leaks that are happening,” says Mr. Usoltsev. “The price of that counteroffensive will be very high, for sure. But our commanders have proven already they can make successful decisions. They know how to fight wars. ... We trust them.”
Also ready for the counteroffensive is a soldier who gave the name Anatolii, a lawyer with an earring in his left ear, who signed up to fight with Dnipro-1 days after Russian forces invaded last year.
The first months he witnessed “permanent waves of fire coming in,” when the unit had little protection.
“You can feel that Russia’s army is much weaker than it was before,” he says. “This gives us confidence and hope.”
Oleksandr Naselenko supported reporting for this story.
