The anticipated Ukrainian counter-offensive: When, where and how?

The Ukrainian military has been talking since late last year about plans for a major counter-offensive.

The Pentagon documents, if they are to be believed, indicated that the offensive was planned to start on 30 April.

In late March, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that the Ukrainian Armed Forces were not yet ready for large-scale operations. And Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal indicated in mid-April that a counteroffensive could be expected in the summer.

Western experts are more inclined to the prime minister's position: late autumn, or even early summer.

“They want good weather conditions so that they can conduct offensive manoeuvre operations,” said Robert Cullum, Lecturer in Defence Studies, King’s College London.

“They'll be trying to generate and sustain their own forces, but they'll also be trying to get ahead of Russian attempts to dig in and fortify their own position. So they'll be trying to balance those three things off. And I think the kind of window of opportunity is within the next one to two months. So April, May, into early June.”

But even before that, there is no doubt that the Armed Forces of Ukraine will conduct battlefield reconnaissance and limited-scale operations to identify weaknesses in the Russian defence.

Ukrainian politicians and military officials say the ultimate goal should be the liberation of all Ukrainian territory, including the annexed Crimea and the territory of the separatist republics in the east of the country. But this is unlikely to be done in a single operation in the near future.

The most obvious target of a Ukrainian offensive, according to experts, could be a strike in the direction of the Sea of Azov, in the Zaporizhzhia region, around Melitopol. This could split the