The Russian attacks on nearly a dozen villages in the Kharkiv sector of northeast Ukraine threaten a major breakthrough at the opening of a rolling summer offensive. The situation is described by Ukrainians as “dynamic” and President Volodymyr Zelensky has swiftly replaced his Kharkiv commander.
The European and American western allies seem only partly aware of what Ukrainian defeat may bring — though Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron have begun to sound the alarm. Victory around Kharkiv won’t bring peace. More likely, we face a very hot summer and a wider war.
Ukraine’s forces are still short on the ammunition and weaponry they asked for all winter — the new supplies of shells, drones and electronic warfare kit won’t be there in quantity for weeks. More significant, perhaps, has been President Biden’s prohibition about providing missiles that can strike into Russian territory.
This lack meant Russian forces could walk across the border into the Kharkiv area almost unopposed. It also does little to mitigate Russia’s dominance in the close air battle over the front lines. Their new combinations of drones, old fashioned glide bombs launched from bombers way back over Russian territory, and a new prowess in electronic warfare, is giving them the initiative.
Victory around Kharkiv won’t bring peace. More likely, we face a very hot summer and a wider war
The most powerful indicator that Vladimir Putin is planning a long war is the change made at the top in the Kremlin. Sergei Shoigu has been shifted sideways and replaced as defence minister by Andrei Belousov, an economist with expertise in the digital economy and promoting cutting-edge industrial innovation, including the production of drones.
Shoigu wasn’t military, either, being an engineer appointed by Putin in 2012 to clean up rampant defence sector corruption. He didn’t do too well in that — Moscow has just fired his deputy on corruption grounds. Belousov is there to make the war economy run and run for years and push innovation in the new tools of cyber and hybrid warfare — developing the use of artificial intelligence, integrating new North Korean, Chinese and Iranian missiles, and the autonomous weaponry now appearing on the battlefront.
Confrontation with the West will be as much on and below the sea, in space and cyberspace. Russia sees itself as a global maritime power, and is pushing back not only in the Baltic and Black Sea, but the Arctic, the Red Sea, Gulf and Indian Ocean, where its ships have been exercising with Chinese, Iranian, Pakistan and Indian units.
More telling was the report of continuous cyber incursions and attacks, continuous surveillance of vulnerable offshore and underwater assets, communication cables, oil and gas pipelines and terminals, wind farms.
A collision with Russia is sure to be exploited by China to its own, aggressive, advantage. Meeting the new global security has put defence firmly into this autumn’s election debates.
The signals from Kharkiv suggest we need to curtail the debate and get ready now — action this day.
Robert Fox is the Evening Standard’s defence editor
