Even as seventy-two more systems arrived—along with dozens of NATO-compatible howitzers from France and Germany—Ukrainian generals estimated that Russian artillery outnumbered Ukraine’s seven to one; every day, Russian forces fired about twenty thousand shells, targeting cities such as Severodonetsk and Lisichansk. Zelensky said that in June, as many as a hundred Ukrainian soldiers were killed every day. It was the most difficult moment of the war for Ukraine, with Russia – alternately and at great cost to its own forces – breaking through Ukrainian defenses and gaining territory meter by meter.
Washington has encouraged Ukraine to rely on wise planning and the effectiveness of Western weaponry, rather than trying to outmaneuver Russia’s military. NATO chose a similar strategy in the later stages of the Cold War, when it found itself with far fewer tanks and artillery than the Soviet Union. “We told the Ukrainians if they try to fight like the Russians, they will lose,” said a senior Defense Ministry official. “Our mission was to help Ukraine compensate for quantitative inferiority with qualitative superiority.”
Ukraine has a fleet of reconnaissance drones and a loose network of human resources inside Russian military-controlled areas, but its ability to gather battlefield intelligence is greatly reduced about fifteen miles behind the front lines. Meanwhile, US spy satellites can capture images of troop positions anywhere on earth. Closer to the ground, US military spy planes flying along the border add to the picture, and intelligence intercepts can allow analysts to eavesdrop on communications between Russian commanders. Since the invasion, the US and other Western partners have shared much of that information with Ukraine. Mykola Bielieskov, a defense expert at the National Institute for Strategic Studies in Kyiv, said: “It’s an important field where the US is helping us.”
One evening in April, in an intelligence coordination center somewhere in Europe, Ukrainian military officers asked their American and NATO counterparts to confirm a set of coordinates. This has become common practice. Ukrainian representatives could request verification of the location of a Russian command post or ammunition depot. “We’re doing it, fair game,” said a senior Biden administration official. In some cases, US intelligence and military officers provide unsolicited targeting information: “We’re letting them know, say, a battalion is moving toward Slavyansk from the northwest, and here they are about here.” But, the official stressed, Ukrainian forces choose what to hit. “We do not endorse or condone the goals.”
The Biden administration has also refused to provide specific intelligence on the location of high-ranking Russian individuals, such as generals or other senior figures. “There are lines that we have drawn so that it is not perceived that we are in direct conflict with Russia,” said a senior US official. The United States will transmit the coordinates of a command post, for example, but not the presence of a specific commander. “We’re not trying to kill generals,” a senior Biden administration official said. “We are trying to help the Ukrainians undermine Russian command and control.”
However, Ukraine has so far killed as many as eight generals, most of them from a long distance with artillery and rocket fire. The high death toll is partly a reflection of Russian military doctrine, which calls for top-down hierarchical operations. In most cases, Russian mid-ranking officers and soldiers do not have decision-making authority, which creates the need for generals to be stationed closer to the front. “They depended on them to control and direct the troops,” a US military official said. “It’s a major operational disaster.”
“I know they should invite them to our house next time, but can’t we just give them the cash equivalent and a receipt?” Cartoon by Teresa Burns Parkhurst
“I know they should invite them to our house next time, but can’t we just give them the cash equivalent and a receipt?”
Cartoon by Teresa Burns Parkhurst
The Ukrainian request in April referred to the suspected location of the Moscow, a Russian naval cruiser and an admiral ship of the Black Sea Fleet. Can US intelligence confirm that the ship was at specific coordinates south of the Ukrainian port city of Odessa? The answer came in the affirmative. Soon officials in Washington began seeing media reports that the ship had suffered some kind of explosion. On April 14, Moscow disappeared into the Black Sea.
Kyiv said two Ukrainian-made Neptun anti-ship missiles fired from land near Odessa hit Moscow — a statement confirmed by US intelligence. Russia has never acknowledged that the attack took place, instead blaming a fire on the ship and stormy seas for the loss of the ship. About forty Russian sailors are reported to have died.
After the arrival of the M777, the Ukrainian military increasingly shared information with the US about the state of its weapons on the battlefield, something it was not always willing to do. Reznikov described it as a “mirror reaction” to Washington’s initial approach to the war. “You see they don’t trust you with serious weapons,” he said, “so why should you?” But as the US and other Western powers increased their commitments, the relationship improved. According to Reznikov, “when we received one aid package after another, and when we could see that there was a real desire to help, it allowed us to reach an agreement and achieve a true dialogue.” A Western diplomat in Kiev told me: “It’s a common story here. You can be incredibly careful, until you’re not. Then you become trusting and open.”
When the U.S. military conducts operations with a partner force, such as another NATO member state, it coordinates combat movements on a joint operational picture, or COP, a single digitized display that shows the position and composition of forces. “We don’t really have that with Ukraine,” the military official said. “But it’s close.” Ukrainian commanders provide information to the US military, which provides an almost realistic picture of its weapons in Ukraine. “These days we know similar information about what we gave to Ukraine as we know about equipment in our own military,” the official said. “How many artillery tubes are in operation, what is required for maintenance, where is the part needed.”
In May, Ukrainian artillery crews, using M777s along with some Soviet-era systems, fired on a large contingent of Russian forces attempting to cross a pontoon bridge on the Siverskyi Donets River. Intelligence provided by the US appears to have enabled the Ukrainians to identify the moment the Russian column crossed. It was one of the largest single losses of the Russian army since the beginning of the war. Dozens of tanks and armored vehicles were destroyed, others were burned along the marshy banks of the river, and as many as four hundred Russian soldiers were killed.
For months, Ukraine had one American weapons system at the top of its wish list: the High Mobility Artillery Missile System, or HIMARS. While the M777 can hit artillery pieces, troop formations, tanks and armored vehicles at so-called tactical depth, about fifteen miles, HIMARS can reach an entirely different set of targets: ammunition depots, logistics hubs, radar systems and command-and-control hubs, which tend to be located much further behind enemy lines. The HIMARS system is mounted on a standard US Army truck, making it capable of “shooting and jumping,” in military parlance. Colin Kahl, the deputy secretary of defense for policy, described HIMARS as the equivalent of a “precision-guided air strike,” delivered from the back of a truck.
The Ukrainian military could only take advantage of HIMARS’ extended range if its soldiers had intelligence on where to strike. “Precision fire and intelligence are a marriage,” said a US military official. “It’s hard to have one without the other.” The dilemma for the Biden administration was not whether to give HIMARS to Ukraine, but which munitions to send with them. Each system can carry either a six-missile pod, known as GMLRS, with a range of forty miles, or a single surface-to-surface missile, or ATACMS, which can reach one hundred and eighty miles. “It’s not HIMARS that carries the risk,” a Defense Department official said. “But, rather, if it was equipped with long-range missiles that were used to strike deep into Russian territory.”
Putin is extremely paranoid about long-range conventional missile systems. The Kremlin, for example, is convinced that US ballistic missile defense platforms in Romania and Poland are intended to target Russia. Even if Ukraine agrees not to use HIMARS to launch cross-border attacks, the mere technical possibility of doing so could prove provocative. “We had reason to believe that ATACMS would be a bridge too far,” a defense official said.
The reality of the battlefield inside Ukraine was another deciding factor. “The imperative was ‘What does Ukraine need?'” the defense official said. “Not what they are looking for – what they need. And we do our own assessment of that.” The Biden administration has requested a list of targets that the Ukrainian military wants to attack with HIMARS. “Every single grid point was accessible with GMLRS, not ATACMS,” the defense official said.
There was one exception: Ukraine has expressed an ambitious desire to launch missile attacks on Crimea, which Russia uses to replenish its forces in the south and is largely beyond the reach of the GMLRS. During wartime exercises held over the summer, when the ATACMS possibility arose, it was clear that Ukraine wanted them to “devastate Crimea,” a defense official said. “Putin sees Crimea as much a part of Russia as Saint Petersburg. So in terms of escalation management, we have to keep that in mind.”
In multiple conversations, US officials were adamant that HIMARS could not be used to engage targets across the border. “The Americans said there is a very serious requirement that you not use these weapons to fire on Russian territory,” a Ukrainian military official said. “We immediately said that it was absolutely no problem. We will use them only against the enemy on the territory of Ukraine.” As with other weapon platforms, there is no technical mechanism to ensure compliance. Officially, the US has signaled that all Ukrainian territory illegally occupied by Russia since 2014 – not just that which it has seized since February – is fair game for HIMARS strikes. “We haven’t specifically said we’re not attacking Crimea,” a defense official told me. “But then we didn’t make it possible for them either.”
“We may not have fans, but we’re still viable intellectual property.” Emily Flake cartoon
“We may not have fans, but we’re still viable intellectual property.”
The first batch of HIMARS appeared on the battlefield at the end of June. Within days, videos of Russian equipment and ammunition depots outside Donetsk exploding in clouds of fire and smoke circulated. Reznikov announced that the military had used HIMARS to destroy dozens of similar Russian facilities. In response, a senior Biden administration official said, Russian forces “have had to adjust their tactics and maneuvers,” moving command posts and munitions depots out of range — which also reduces their usefulness in combat. “They are very aware of the presence of HIMARS,” the official said.
