It was bracing that Ukraine launched its counteroffensive against Russian invaders as we celebrate the anniversary of the 1944 D-Day landings this week. This assault could turn the tide of the battle for Ukraine, just as the Allied assault on the Normandy beaches altered the trajectory of World War II.
Military campaigns are rarely all or nothing, but this one comes close. If Ukraine can drive back an already shaky Russian army, it stands a chance of forcing Moscow to bargain for an end of its failed invasion. But if Ukraine fails, it would be a bitter blow to the country’s weary population and could endanger continued support from some restless NATO members.
Biden administration officials believe the offensive began on Monday with a Ukrainian thrust south along multiple axes. A major goal is to cut the land bridge across southeastern Ukraine that connects Russia with its occupation forces in Crimea, U.S. officials believe. Part of Ukraine’s strategy appears to be an attack along several lanes, so they can move forces among them to hit targets of greatest opportunity.
Administration officials were encouraged by better-than-expected progress Monday, as Ukrainian units pushed through heavily mined areas to advance between five and 10 kilometers in some areas of the long front. That raised hopes that Ukrainian forces can keep thrusting toward Mariupol, Melitopol and other Russian-held places along the coast — severing the land bridge.
Tuesday brought a potentially devastating new trauma to the battle area — an apparent sabotage attack that burst the Kakhovka reservoir dam and sent a torrent down the Dnieper River toward occupied Crimea, which depends on the reservoir for much of its water supply. Russia and Ukraine traded blame for the attack, which NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called “an outrageous act.”
Administration officials haven’t concluded yet whether Russia or Ukraine breached the dam. But its loss could have negative consequences for both sides. It will be harder now for Ukraine to push south of the Dnieper; but it could also be harder for Russian troops to maneuver and defend the territories they hold. The cooling water for the huge Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant could eventually be affected, but that would be many weeks from now.
It might take weeks before the results of the Ukrainian campaign are clear, but Kyiv has already succeeded in expanding the stalemated fighting in Bakhmut, the bitterly contested eastern city that was ground zero throughout the winter. This is now a campaign with multiple military and political fronts — and aftershocks that reach to Moscow, Beijing and Washington.
On the eve of the Ukrainian offensive, one notable development was the growing disarray of Russian forces. Yevgeniy Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner militia that did much of the fighting in Bakhmut, has been issuing almost daily tirades against the Russian army. He argued, for example, that its claims of routing Ukrainian forces this week in the Donetsk region were “simply wild and absurd science fiction.”
In a bizarre incident this week, Wagner fighters captured Russian Lt. Col. Roman Venevitin, after some of his soldiers allegedly fired on Wagner’s forces. The Moscow Times quoted Venevitin’s explanation: “I acted in a state of alcoholic intoxication out of personal animosity.”
The mystery has been why Vladimir Putin tolerates this growing disorder. Some experts view this passivity as characteristic. The Russian leader allowed Dmitry Medvedev to conduct foreign policy experiments Putin disliked while Medvedev was president from 2008 to 2012; he allowed subordinates to push a 2018 plan for pension reform, only to soften it when the public protested. Putin doesn’t like to get his hands dirty, it seems, even in the bloody Ukraine war he personally launched.
Ukraine’s willingness to gamble on its summer offensive is a measure of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s confidence but also his need to show results. Such big wagers have mixed results in military history.
Historian Rick Atkinson, who is drafting the second volume of a trilogy about the Revolutionary War, points out in an email that British Lt. Gen. John Burgoyne’s failure at Freeman’s Farm and Bemis Heights near the Hudson River in 1777 forced him to surrender “in one of the decisive pivot points not only of the Revolution but in American history.”
Atkinson recalled that the American commander, Major Gen. Horatio Gates, wrote about Burgoyne just before Freeman’s Farm: “It is evident the general designs to risk all upon one rash stroke.”
Similarly, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, sensing eventual defeat in a war of attrition, rolled the dice in 1863 with his massive offensive at Gettysburg. It, too, failed. German dictator Adolf Hitler sought to reverse defeat with his Ardennes offensive in December 1944, which led to the Battle of the Bulge. “Six weeks after it began, the offensive was in ruins and the Third Reich was doomed,” Atkinson noted in his message.
Against these failed breakouts, D-Day stands as a reminder that an army must sometimes take huge risks to position itself for eventual victory. Any visitor to Omaha Beach in Normandy will recall the steep cliffs at Pointe du Hoc that American Rangers had to scale to dislodge German forces. The grave markers for the soldiers who died on D-Day seem to stretch almost to the horizon. But they won the battle — and the war.
