Spring has arrived and Russia’s winter offensive to conquer the Donbas in eastern Ukraine has come to naught. Analysts see that the intensity of Russian attacks has decreased along the entire front. In some places, the Russians are said to have even counted their knots in anticipation of a Ukrainian counter-offensive.
Novaya Gazeta Europe, the independent Russian newspaper now operating from exile, reported last week, based on a source at the front, that the Russians were withdrawing their troops in several places. For example, the attempt to encircle the front town of Avdiivka would have stalled and Russian troops would be withdrawn from the northern flank of this industrial town.
“The [Russische] positions at Voehledar have been abandoned,” the source said. “There is now a no man’s land of 10 kilometers.” Voehledar, in the south of Donetsk province, was the scene of a weeks-long battle this winter in which dozens of Russian tanks got stuck in a minefield and were blown to pieces.
Getting stuck
The picture is of course not the same everywhere at the front. When an attack gets stuck in one place, the Russians often try to see if it succeeds in another side. But after months of pushing, they have been unable to find a weak spot in Ukraine’s defenses along the hundreds of miles of fighting in the Donbas.
In the wooded area in the north of the Donbas, Lugansk province, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports “local tactical advances” by the Russians: territorial gains that will not change the course of the war. This would be partly due to the deployment of airborne troops along this axis near the city of Kreminna.
These elite troops, known by the Russian abbreviation VDV, were cut short during the attack on Kiev. But according to the British Ministry of Defense, VDV units are being rebuilt for future offensives. In addition, since this month the airborne troops could use devastating thermobaric rocket launchers, also known as vacuum bombs or ‘heavy flamethrowers’.
Encirclement
Units of the same VDV are also responsible for occupying the northern and southern flanks of the city in the hotly contested Bachmoet, while Wagner troops fight their way through the center street by street. But Ukraine also managed to prevent an encirclement in Bachmut at the beginning of March, even though it already seemed like a fait accompli.
“Today, despite the many troops that Putin has mobilized, Russia is unable to attack along two or three different axes,” Ukrainian military expert and former general Oleh Zhdanov predicted to De Telegraaf, when the Russian winter offensive settled in February.
Zhdanov was right. In no place has Russia managed to force a breakthrough. Will Putin ask himself who can fulfill his impossible goal of completely conquering the Donbas?
Withdrawal
With that assignment in his pocket, Russia’s top general Valeri Gerasimov was immediately put in charge of the troops in Ukraine in January. General Sergey Soerovikin, responsible for the orderly withdrawal from the port city of Kherson and the missile campaign against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, had to take a step back.
Soerovikin had shown himself to be a realistic war-fighter who can organize a defence. Gerasimov will now have to show that too. Russian military bloggers also point out that Russia is preparing for a Ukrainian counter-offensive. Satellite images show that Russia has built extensive systems of trenches all the way to the occupied Crimean peninsula.
“It seems that the Russians already realized that they would later have to switch to defense when the order to launch the attack was given,” Ukrainian military expert Oleksandr Musiienko told Novaya Gazeta Europe. “And that moment has now come.”
Cut through
According to the British Ministry of Defence, three layers of trenches in the southern Ukrainian province of Zaporizhia indicate that Russia expects a Ukrainian offensive towards the key city of Melitopol. This would enable Ukraine to cut through the land bridge connecting the occupied parts of eastern Ukraine with Crimea.
But the leaked Pentagon documents that came to light last week show that Washington is skeptical about a major Ukrainian offensive. In early February, US intelligence said Ukraine could make only “limited progress” due to lagging efforts to raise and arm new troops. Large-scale territorial gains such as in the fall in Kherson and Kharkiv provinces would be unlikely.