The gradual surrender of the defenders of the Azovstal factory in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol is a symbolic victory for Russia, while a trip to the border and the destruction of a Russian armored brigade gives the Ukrainians courage. But in the battle for the Donets Basin, which is really what it is all about, neither side can cash in on the smaller successes for the time being.
They can finally get out of hell, 264 defenders of the huge Azovstal factory in Mariupol. More than fifty of them are seriously injured. In the night from Monday to Tuesday, they are loaded into ten buses. They take them to two towns in pro-Russian separatist territory in Donetsk. Ultimately, an exchange for Russian POWs should bring the heroes of Mariupol back home.
According to the Ukrainian army, many defenders are still trapped in the bunkers under the steel complex. Their evacuation is also being negotiated with Russia. But the word is out: Kyiv no longer expects them to fight on; they have “completed their mission”.
“We hope we can save the lives of our boys,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a speech. “There are serious injuries among them. They are receiving care. Ukraine needs living Ukrainian heroes.”
After months of desperate fighting, Mariupol’s final fall does not come with a thunderclap. The Russians already had control over the rest of the port city – and with it a secure land bridge between Donetsk and Crimea. The encirclement of Azovstal costs manpower that could be put to good use elsewhere, but the defenders no longer posed a tactical threat. Their surrender is above all a symbolic boost for Russia.
Just touch the border with Russia
Soldiers of the 227th Battalion of the Ukrainian 127th Territorial Defense Brigade reach the edge of the bush and run across the open field. Two of them carry a wooden pole painted with yellow and blue stripes. They put it in the ground a short distance away and gather around it for a video message to their commander in chief, President Zelensky. “We made it, Mr. President, we’re here.”
‘Here’ is the Ukrainian-Russian border. The one before the invasion, just north of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. That important cultural and industrial center was besieged and destroyed for months, but it survived. Fierce Ukrainian counter-attacks, which began in mid-April, are now pushing Russian forces back toward Russia.
The men of the 227th battalion slipped past the Russians on May 15 to tap the border. For the time being, mainly a symbolic gesture, because Ukraine is far from there yet. But it is one with far more potential implications than Azovstal’s surrender in Mariupol.
If the Ukrainians continue to storm in the northeast, they could potentially disrupt Russian supplies to Izyum. There is heavy fighting in that city on the Donets River, southeast of Kharkiv. The Russian city of Belgorod may also come within range of Ukrainian artillery – a nightmare scenario for the Kremlin.
Even Kremlin cheerleaders have to swallow
The US House of Representatives approved a sample package of aid to Ukraine on May 11. If the Senate also gives in, Kyiv can count on 40 billion dollars (almost 38 billion euros) in additional support, on top of the 14 billion dollars it has already received. Western weaponry, including heavy artillery, is pouring into Ukraine.
The chief of the Ukrainian military intelligence service showed strikingly optimistic last week. “The tipping point will come in the second half of August,” Major General Kyrylo Budanov predicted in an interview with Sky News† “Most active combat operations will have ended by the end of this year,” he said. “As a result, we will restore Ukrainian authority over all the areas we have lost, including the Donets Basin and Crimea.”
In Russia, last week’s destruction of an armored brigade near Severodonetsk, a Ukrainian-owned city in Luhansk, severely dented public confidence in the neighboring country’s “special military operation”. Images of the wreckage of dozens of armored vehicles and trucks near a blown-up pontoon bridge sparked criticism of the military leadership even among Kremlin cheerleaders on state media.
During a talk show with an audience of millions on Rossiya 1 on Monday, military commentator Mikhail Khodaryonok, the former air defense colonel, also spoke openly. express his concerns about the large number of Ukrainian troops available, their high morale and the Western arms flow. “We are in complete geopolitical isolation and, as much as it bothers us to admit it, almost the whole world is against us. And that’s the situation we need to get out of.”
Defender in favor
While a look at last week’s news stream suggests that Ukraine is on the rise and Russia is shrinking, the military reality is less black and white. The battle for the Donets Basin seems to have turned into a stalemate rather than a clear victory for one of the warring sides.
The Russian plan is to completely conquer the Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donetsk basin. To encircle the Ukrainian defenders in that area, the Russians try to advance from Izyum to the cities of Barinkove (an important railway junction), Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.
The Russians control most of Luhansk, but get stuck on well-defended Severodonetsk (as the pontoon bridge attack showed). They made some progress around Izyum in the past week, but that was at most a few hard-fought kilometers a day. Most of Donetsk province is still under Ukrainian control.
The main problem for Moscow is that the resistance in the Donets Basin comes from the hardened core of the Ukrainian army, well supplied and firmly entrenched. Most military doctrines state that an attacker needs a troop strength of at least three to one to overthrow such defenders. For the conquest of cities such as Severodonetsk and Kramatorsk, the ratio is even higher.
Not automatically a dramatic turnaround
It doesn’t seem like Russia has that many soldiers at its disposal. The British Ministry of Defense estimated last Sunday that a third of the Russian invasion force has been put out of action.
This is good news for the Ukrainians, but it does not automatically mean a dramatic turnaround in the course of the war. Defenders must be able to climb out of their trenches to launch a counteroffensive, requiring more manpower and other resources.
Not an easy job, especially if the Russians dig themselves in in turn. The Ukrainians are already experiencing this in the battle for the south of their country. Limited-scale counter-attacks, such as the one around Kharkiv, are anything but a full-fledged offensive to push Russia back across the board.