Russia and Ukraine are both planning another attack

The war in Ukraine is almost a year old and about to enter a new bloody phase. Both Russia and Ukraine are now planning a new military offensive. That is why Frans Osinga, endowed professor of war studies at Leiden University, finds this a frightening moment.

The Ukrainians prefer to wait a little longer, Osinga thinks, until they have the new Western military equipment. The tanks and armored vehicles that have been promised in recent weeks will not be here in the near future. “That window wants to use Russia,” the professor assumes.

The Russians want to attack as soon as possible. Preferably before the technically superior weapons, such as the German Leopard tanks, appear on the battlefield. But the problem, according to Osinga, is that Moscow can call up soldiers, but they are not yet armed and trained. And even after training, the new soldiers do not immediately form effective combat units. The circulating figure of 500,000 recruits seems to Osinga an exaggeration.

Even if the newly mobilized troops are poorly trained and poorly armed, Osinga thinks that won’t stop the Kremlin from attacking. “That will claim a lot of victims.” The professor calls the way in which the Russian army treats human lives “criminally frivolous”. The tactics remind him of the First World War.

The big question for the Ukrainians is whether the Western weapons will arrive in time. “To be able to start an offensive. And to be able to repel a major attack.”

And this does not only concern rolling stock, but also ammunition, which quickly runs out. That is why the United States and France, for example, are going to jointly produce 155-millimeter shells for the heavy Western guns that Ukraine has been given. “Sufficient resources are important,” says Osinga. “Because you can start an offensive, but you also have to be able to hold onto conquered territory afterwards.”

According to the professor, it is not a foregone conclusion that Ukraine will be able to repeat the successes of this autumn. “They put the Russians on the wrong foot then. In August they always talked about an offensive at Kherson, but they struck at Kharkov. You don’t do that a second time.”

A major concern for Zelensky and his commanders is the Russian air force, Osinga assumes. There are about 1,500 fighter planes on standby all over Russia, but little is done with them. “They make about 250 combat flights over Ukraine per day, which is nothing. For comparison: during the Kosovo war in 1999, the Allies made 500 to 1,000 sorties per day, which flattened the enemy.”

Osinga calls the failure of the Russians to gain air superiority over Ukraine at the start of the war as one of President Putin’s biggest blunders. “It was poorly planned. They even shot down their own planes.”

According to the military scientist, the Russians must have learned from this. “They’ve had months to do that.” Osinga fears that if the Russians actually deploy their air force in a subsequent attack, Ukraine will be in for an unpleasant surprise.