Military expert on Russia’s potential summer offensive in Ukraine

In an interview with NV Radio on April 4, Ukrainian reserve officer and military analyst Andriy Kramarov talked about how successful Russia’s potential summer offensive—which some Western observers are expecting—could be in breaking through the Ukrainian lines.

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Kramarov’s direct speech is as follows:

“Their [Russians] key task won’t be something like capturing Avdiivka or Bakhmut, as we’ve seen before, but their task will be to create a wide breach in the front line, opening up some operational space.

This means they don’t just have to break through our front line and advance beyond it, but they’ll need to be able to maneuver further in that sector to get into the operational rear of one of our key areas.

These key [areas] include Kupyansk, Lyman [Kharkiv Oblast], Bakhmut, and Chasiv Yar [Donetsk Oblast]. Perhaps moving further east beyond Avdiivka isn’t quite logical. Here, Vuhledar makes more sense as it’s already southeast. The Russians now require additional logistical links, which is why they are building a new railway to connect occupied Crimea and Russia proper via the occupied areas of southern Ukraine. They also have a critical need to protect themselves from our medium-range weapons.

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The breakthrough of the front line with the possibility of further advance, so to say, along our rear, to force us to withdraw in a hurry, so that the front line undergoes significant changes on the map — these are the objectives they have set for themselves.

To say they currently have the capabilities for this... No, they don’t.

The question [for Russia] is to identify the best point to strike at our defenses. We must prepare for this and build fortifications accordingly. We don’t need to pay attention to reports about a new [planned Russian] offensive on Kyiv or Kharkiv. Believe me, to gain at least some success there, Moscow would need vastly more resources than it now has.

For example, taking Kyiv would take all those 300,000 people they plan to mobilize, which must be deployed to Kyiv, with a 50% probability of success. They may simply lose this manpower along with the equipment, and it will be much more difficult to approach [Kyiv] and retreat as quickly as they did in early 2022.

Securing Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts is the key task of their so-called “special military operation.” That is, a breakthrough in the east, securing a land bridge to Crimea is a much more fruitful achievement from a military point of view. Not that there are necessarily more chances to succeed there, but it’s more promising from a military point of view.

They’ll continue their missile and drone terror of our cities, with the rhetoric, “if you don’t agree to sit down [at the negotiating table] with us and start talking, we’ll just completely destroy your country.” At the same time, more escalating rhetoric: “If you still don’t start talking to us, we’ll launch a new offensive on Kyiv or Kharkiv.” This is their overarching strategy: to force Ukraine and our partners to sit down at the negotiating table. This is what explains these escalating psyops.

At the moment, Russia doesn’t have the force to try and pull it off. Let’s take Avdiivka as an example: it took Moscow 120,000 troops to conquer the town with a pre-war population of 35,000. This is the actual force ratios Russia can expect when trying to capture Ukrainian cities.

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Yes, we have many problems. We must somehow ensure a stable supply of munitions. We must build a line of defense very quickly because, yes, the Russians will probably try [for a breakthrough]. A new offensive will be postponed or abandoned only if [Ukraine] sits down at the negotiating table with Russia. [Therefore], there will be more attempted offensives, as well as attempts to break through the front line. Therefore, we must prepare for this. We must finally pass the [mobilization reform] bill and begin [a wider] mobilization.”

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