Now that the launch of the long-awaited Ukrainian counter-offensive is no longer in doubt, another question remains unanswered: after several months of preparation, is the fate of the weapons what Kiev wants? After ten days of attacks, the realities are far from established and it is impossible to know if Ukraine is on the path to success.

“We should not extrapolate around the initial Ukrainian assaults or on the Russian defense operations to predict the result of the counter-offensive”, underlines, cautious, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), an American research center , especially since “the objectives of the counter-offensive are not yet perfectly clear”. Several military consultants and the United States call for patience, assuring that this phase promises to be long. “The battle is going to be harder and harder. For Ukraine’s international allies, the summer is going to be tough. The losses will increase and the successes will take time to materialize,” said Jack Watling, in a brief from the Royal United Institute (Rusi), a British organization.

Ukrainian forces are currently trying to break through on three axes, where they have nibbled some ground. First south of Zaporizhia, near Orikhiv, the troops would have advanced 3 kilometers around Mala Tomashka. At the other end of this southern front, which extends from the Dnieper to the western suburb of the city of Donetsk, occupied since 2014, they had taken 7 kilometers on Thursday, still according to the Ukrainian staff, on the second axis of the offensive, around Velyka Novosilka not far from Vouhledar. On the third axis, north and northwest of Bakhmout, now in Russian hands, Ukrainian commandos “carried out operations,” said Oleksandr Shtupun, the military spokesman. Ukrainian forces insisted on the same points on Friday, kyiv assured, without further details.

However, the first clashes did allow some lessons to be learned. Ukrainian losses would be heavy, explain several Western sources, and the fighting extremely violent. kyiv does not reveal anything, as it should, but material losses are an indicator. According to the specialized site Oryx, which lists these losses from photos or videos taken on the battlefield, Kiev lost 4 German Leopard tanks recently delivered, 2 French AMX-10 RC FR reconnaissance tanks, and more than 70 western infantry combat.

The offensive is always much more expensive in lives, and the Russian defenses, made of minefields, trenches and “dragons teeth”, have been built for months to form the most powerful “wall” ever seen in Europe since World War II. Russian troops themselves would prove effective for now, no surprise. If the Russian army experienced a rout in the first months of the conflict and in the fall south of Kharkiv, it has since recovered. Australian General Mick Ryan thus noted the good execution of the delicate withdrawal operation in Kherson.

These fights are only preliminary, no doubt aimed at testing the Russians or finding possible weak points. Ukraine is very far from having committed the bulk of these forces. It only sank a few kilometers, at best, into enemy lines, without having made a real breakthrough. However, underlines the Rusi, “the main line of defense is still 15-20 kilometers from the Ukrainian positions”. And the further the Kiev soldiers advance, the more they will find themselves under Russian artillery fire, with increasing difficulty for their own artillery to deliver counter-battery fire, an area where Moscow has made great strides. The danger for the Ukrainians is all the greater as the terrain, south of Zaporijjia, is very flat, with no real cover, therefore ideal for drones.

Minefields, extremely numerous and permanently remodeled by rocket launchers, are a major obstacle, which “channels” the Ukrainian forces into dangerous bottlenecks. But the attention seems to be focused these days mainly on electronic warfare. According to Russian bloggers and Western sources, Moscow has regained the advantage in this area, jamming signals and greatly reducing the effectiveness of munitions guided by Ukrainian GPS, in particular those of Himars, these American rocket launchers until then daunting and complicating the flight of drones. In kyiv, the general staff would have made the destruction of Russian electronic warfare units a priority.