Ukraine’s sitzkrieg drags on as April showers keep May’s counteroffensive stuck in neutral.

(Originally published May 2 in “What in the World“) Maybe the Pentagon should hire some of those soon-to-strike Hollywood writers. They might be able to inject some drama to the plodding second season of its once hit series “Ukraine: Cold War Erupts.”

Since at least February, Ukrainian and American officials have been dropping hints of a Big Spring Counteroffensive. It’s now May, summer is fast approaching, and everyone is still anticipating the Big Spring Counteroffensive. This weekend, Ukrainian forces blew up an oil depot in Russian-occupied Sevastopol, apparently with a drone. The spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern command said was part of preparations for the Big Spring Counteroffensive “that everyone expects.”

Imagine if D-Day had been conducted with this much secrecy. A week ago, Ukrainian troops were reported taking up positions on the eastern banks of the Dnipro near Kherson. Preparations are so slow that feature writers are documenting efforts to dig in upstream close to Zaporizhzhia and ship fresh recruits to the frontlines. But the Big Spring Counteroffensive has become the war’s version of the dragons in HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” with Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov appearing on TV to announce that the military was close to “the finish line” for launching the Big Spring Counteroffensive.

The most surprising thing so far about the Big Spring Counteroffensive—let’s just call it the BSC—will be how Ukraine manages to launch it before spring is over. Reznikov would reveal only that military commanders would decide “how, where and when” to launch the BSC. But the BSC’s objective is already obvious: sever the land bridge between Russia and Crimea and try to retake the strategic peninsula and the port of Sevastopol. The BSC has been so well-advertised that it would be no surprise if Ukraine weren’t planning another surprise one-two punch like last fall, when its Big Fall Counteroffensive against Kherson was accompanied by a surprisingly successful push against Kharkiv.

The truth may be less dramatic. The Pentagon, according to top-secret documents allegedly leaked online by a U.S. air national guardsman, worried as early as February that Ukraine lacked the military muscle to make the BSC successful. They also worry that Ukraine is running dangerously low on air-defense missiles, a revelation that may explain fresh missile barrages in the past week by Russia: Moscow is trying to deplete Kyiv’s defenses ahead of the BSC, which suggests it may be Moscow planning a BSC of its own.

The U.S. and its allies have been pouring weapons into Ukraine since to better the odds of a successful BSC, adding tanks to the mix, though they’re running low on stockpiles themselves. Part of the problem has been Ukraine’s dogged defense of Bakhmut, where it has expended astonishing amounts of 155mm artillery to maintain a ferocious stalemate for a city whose strategic value is debatable.

Now, stocked up on Western ammo, tanks and other armored vehicles, Ukrainian forces may face a foe as intractable, if not moreso, than the Russians—mud. Unusually heavy spring rains have reportedly turned the lines east of the Dnipro in Zaporizhzhia into a muddy quagmire. The mud, which The New York Times describes as having a consistency described as a combination of “cookie dough and wet cement,” is so gooey that even tracked vehicles like tanks, missile launchers and howitzers get bogged down.

So, until the battlefields dry out, the sitzkrieg may continue and the BSC may turn out to have stood for the Big Summer Counteroffensive.