Kyiv, Ukraine. Ukrainian commander Oleksiy Tarasenko witnessed an alarming shift last month in Russia’s efforts to break through kyiv’s defense of the industrial region known as Donbas.
Faced with Russia’s unwavering advance on the strategic frontline town of Chasiv Yar, he noted that, instead of conducting typical light infantry assaults, Moscow’s forces were taking brazen risks by launching battalion- and platoon-sized attacks, at sometimes with up to 10 combat troops. vehicles.
His men destroyed up to 80 tanks in the following weeks, but that did not slow the enemy. The Russian military’s confidence reflected the Kremlin’s knowledge that Ukraine’s munitions supplies were dwindling as the United States delayed approving more military aid.
The U.S. House’s passage Saturday of a long-awaited $61 billion package for Ukraine puts the country one step closer to an injection of new firepower that will be rushed to the front lines to fight the latest Moscow attacks. But time is ticking and Russia is using all its strength to achieve its most significant achievements since its invasion before the May 9 deadline. Meanwhile, kyiv has no choice but to wait for its supplies to be replenished.
Seeing a window of opportunity, Russia seized momentum on the battlefield and forced kyiv’s forces to give up tactically significant territory, one painful meter (yard) after another.
Wave after wave of mechanized units arrived at Tarasenko’s brigade. Protected under an umbrella of attack drones and artillery fire, they arrived at the foot of Chasiv Yar, which is the gateway to Ukraine’s defensive backbone in the Donetsk region.
“They concentrated disproportionately huge resources in this direction,” said Tarasenko, deputy commander of the 5th Separate Assault Brigade. “The most difficult thing is to cope with this constant attack by the enemy, which does not change, although the enemy is losing a lot of military equipment and soldiers.”
The Pentagon has said it could send weapons to Ukraine within days if the Senate and President Joe Biden give final approval to the aid package. But Ukrainian experts and lawmakers said assistance could take weeks to reach troops, giving Russia more time to degrade Ukrainian defenses.
The seven-month effort to pass the package effectively held Ukraine hostage to the domestic politics of its largest ally. It also raised concerns about how the shifting sands of U.S. politics will influence future military support.
European partners cannot match the volume and scope of American aid, which remains kyiv’s main hope for winning the war. But that support has come with red lines, including rules prohibiting the use of Western-supplied weapons for attacks inside the Russian Federation. Some Ukrainian officials maintain that such limits hamper their ability to cripple the enemy’s strongest capabilities.
Assuming assistance arrives in the next two months, plans are underway for a possible late summer offensive. Analysts have argued that future support should not depend on a large decisive battle, but on a strategy sustained over many years.
But first, Ukraine must stop Russia’s attempts to break defensive lines and entrenched positions.
Last month, The Associated Press spoke with a dozen commanders in active areas of the eastern front line, from Kupiansk in the northeast to Bakhmut further south. They said their soldiers rationed shells and struggled to repel enemy attacks with insufficient artillery ammunition.
They are also running critically low on air defense missiles, not only for high-end Patriot systems that protect cities, but also for tactical air systems. This has given Russian fighter-bombers the opportunity to unleash thousands of deadly gliding aerial bombs on Ukrainian positions, obliterating defenses, something the Russian air force had not been able to do before.
Since January, the Kremlin has seized 360 square kilometers (140 square miles) of Ukrainian territory, about the size of the American city of Detroit, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.
Ukrainian commanders have complained about serious ammunition shortages since late December. In February, heads of artillery units in several regions said they had less than 10% of the supplies they needed as kyiv scrambled to economize on shells.
Nowhere are supplies needed more than in Chasiv Yar, where after weeks of fierce fighting, Moscow intends to conquer the city. Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrski said Russia’s top military leaders ordered their soldiers to capture the city before May 9, Russia’s Victory Day, a holiday marking the defeat of Nazi Germany.
To achieve that goal, Russia launches daily drone and glide bomb attacks against Ukrainian forces who have no way to counterattack.
Time is of the essence, said Yurii Fedorenko, battalion commander of the 92nd Brigade in the Chasiv Yar region.
“They simply destroyed our positions with massive attacks. Now those positions are constantly attacked by artillery, making it impossible to recover them,” he stated.
“Now we have nothing to respond to the enemy with,” he added.
Fedorenko, commanding men who have reached extreme levels of exhaustion, acknowledged that the Russians were advancing steadily. At the time of the interview, Russian forces were only 500 meters (1,640 feet) from the city, he said.
The soldiers who died to protect the lost land could have been saved if American aid had been approved sooner, he said.
“Our losses could be reduced to a minimum and we would not have lost territories that would later have to be reconquered.”
Russia gained momentum shortly after taking control of Avdiivka in February. Immediately, Moscow’s troops sought to reinforce their tactical success and advance towards larger and strategically important cities (Kostiantynivka, Sloviansk and Druzkhivka) that together form the wall of Ukraine’s main defense in the Donetsk region.
A victory at Chasiv Yar, which had a population of 12,000 before the war, would bring Russia one step closer to breaking that barricade.
“If the Russians manage to take Chasiv Yar, they will be only about 5 or 7 kilometers from the southernmost link in that chain,” said George Barros, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. If Russia manages to penetrate the gap between Kostiantynivka and Druzhkivka, it could attack the fortress belt, he said.
“Then we will enter territory where the Russians could be making really substantial operational gains and eroding Ukraine’s ability to defend the rest of Donetsk,” he said.
An infusion of new supplies would provide cover for Ukrainian forces and help them push back the enemy. But Russia will still have an advantage in both manpower and ammunition. The Russian military has the capacity to generate 20,000 to 30,000 new volunteers per month and has a roughly 6-to-1 advantage in artillery.
So far, that reality has ruled out any possibility of a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Russian fighters “do not have the feeling that they will now lose some critical unit of armored vehicles or soldiers for whom they will no longer have new reinforcements,” Tarasenko said. “They don’t worry about that. “That’s his advantage.”