Russia’s bloody summer offensive is hurting Ukraine – The Economist – 06.08.24
- Michael Julien
- Aug 6, 2024
- 4 min read
FOR THOSE arriving on the lunar, pockmarked terrain of Ukraine’s eastern front lines, life is often short. “The experienced soldiers fear getting to know the newcomers,” says “Artem”, a soldier once attached to the 59th brigade south of Pokrovsk, in the province of Donetsk. “Your fate is decided in the first few hours. Five, ten minutes, that’s really all it takes.”
Artem recalls seeing “perhaps two hundred abandoned [kit] bags” with surnames in one forward bunker. Getting to positions is only half the story. Once in the crusty burrows that make up the front line, you have to deal with what some soldiers call “vinegret”, a beetroot salad; or the putrid mix of metal, rubbish, branches, blood and human remains. “It’s impossible to hold positions as so many have fallen, and no one recovers the bodies.”
Map: The Economist
Russia’s summer offensive, unlike Ukraine’s counter-offensive last year, was never announced. Its most intense phase has been going on in the Donbas region and Kharkiv province for three months now. Beset by a shortage of weapons and men, Ukraine has steadily lost ground since falling back from Avdiivka in February: a village here, a bungled rotation there. It is now retreating by up to 1km a day. Fighting has intensified all along the front line. On July 30th, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Pokrovsk, a town of 60,000 people before the war, had become Russia’s main target.
Russia’s advance has been piecemeal and has come at a high price. At this rate it will be years before it completes its seizure of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, its long-stated political aim, if it can do it at all. Its losses, dead and wounded, are running at several hundred a day, five to ten times what Ukraine is suffering. Armoured vehicles are scarce, methodically destroyed by Ukrainian drones. Some units are using ancient motorcycles.
But Russia has also developed tactics that work. Relentless waves of soldiers, thrown at Ukrainian guns, get through by sheer weight of numbers. Glide bombs and a 4:1 superiority in artillery shells can demolish positions. Drones quickly imperil key supply roads far from the fighting.
“They attack our weak spots all along the front line,” says Serhiy Tsikhotsky, an officer in the 59th brigade. The Russians appear to be targeting units with low morale or command tensions, using disinformation campaigns and guns to weaken them further.
The 59th has been a particular target following the public criticism of its commander for an allegedly cavalier approach to operations. The criticism only increased in late July when a group was surrounded in Krasnohorivka, 35km south-east of Pokrovsk, without orders to retreat. Mr Tsikhotsky says the criticism was unfair. “Right now commanders are having to decide between the difficult and extremely difficult.”
A Ukrainian security source based in Pokrovsk attributes much of the downturn to a “devastating” hold-up of weapons by the US Congress earlier this year. But the most pressing current problem is manpower and the failure of Ukraine’s mobilisation programme. Russia has more men. Morale in the Ukrainian ranks has dropped accordingly, he says, though the extent varies wildly depending on the brigade. “There are some brigades where work is well organised, others where frankly it is not.”
At one extreme, brigades like the 3rd assault, now based further north around Izium, even have reserves to draw on. But three years of attritional warfare can wear down even the best units. A commander of the 24th brigade, recently transferred from Niu-York to Chasiv Yar, two of the hottest sections of the front, says battalions in his brigade are now fighting with just 20 people in position, less than a platoon size. He asks to remain anonymous to express his anguish in full. “Call me Syrsky,” he quips, his voice laced with anger towards Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief.
The 24th’s Syrsky says his brigade, which mostly uses now rare Soviet-produced weapons, has been rationed to two to six shells over eight guns per day. The result is about 15 casualties for every fighting day in the brigade. “It’s madness. We are fighting with cooks, electricians and mechanics.”
The recent setbacks have prompted senior commanders to send in crisis managers, with some success. Among them is Colonel Pavlo Fedosenko, who twice played a crucial role in defending Kharkiv from Russian attacks, most recently in May. His appearance at Krasnohorivka, one of the more critical sectors, has coincided with its stabilisation. Ukraine is now holding off the Russians from advancing further, and still controls about 10% of that town.
“The command was weak,” he says in a rapid interview near the front lines. “I’ve given each unit clearer instructions on their tasks, the location of reserves, the enemy’s position, and where Russian drones are operating.” Colonel Fedosenko insists that the stabilisation must be followed by a push against Russian lines. “We need to regain the initiative. If we don’t, they will continue to set the terms.”
Pokrovsk, like many towns and cities in Donbas, waits. Its eastern supply road to Kostiantynivka is already in the range of Russian drones. Artillery lines its edge. Ballistic missiles are part of daily life. Before the fall of nearby Avdiivka in February, two-bedroom apartments here sold for $25,000. Now, the price is $7,000-10,000. A chimaera of civilian life remains in the centre of Pokrovsk, but sadness is etched on every brow. The source in the security services predicts life will change even more definitively here within a couple of months. “They’ll get to certain positions”, he says, “and then Russian artillery and FPV drones will start landing.”
The grinding Russian offensive is posing many questions of Ukraine: of its people, politicians and soldiers. Artem came to a dramatic conclusion. He fled, using the pretext of picking up a parcel from the nearest town. “I wouldn’t be talking to you now if I hadn’t done it,” he says. But even he believes Ukraine must continue fighting, rather than seek a peace, and he would do so under a better commander. Loathing of Russia remains the unifying factor among Ukraine’s soldiers; and it seems to grow stronger the closer they are to the front. Few believe in a ceasefire that would not lead to a renewed and more devastating attack down the line. “As a commander I see the need for negotiations,” says Colonel Fedosenko. “But as a fighter, a patriot, and a Ukrainian, I’m dead against them.” ■
To save this article in pdf, please click here:
To stay on top of the biggest European stories, sign up to Café Europa, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter.
Comentários