Ukraine braced for offensive

Kyiv prepares for Russian attacks on anniversary

The sound of artillery fire is never comforting. The knowledge it is getting a tiny bit closer each day is particularly oppressive. Now, the hyper-awareness and tightness in the chest experienced by anyone standing on the Ukrainian side of the lines in Donbas recently has received official recognition.

Volodymr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, last week declared Russia’s long-awaited spring offensive had begun. And Kyiv is bracing for something big around the first anniversary of the invasion on February 24.

“This is a country obsessed by dates,” Oleksey Danilov, the secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, told The Times this week.

What is certain is that after months of stalemate, Vladimir Putin’s army is on the move again.

In the past few weeks they have put in attacks along the southern front in Zaporizhzhia region, in the south-eastern Donetsk region town of Vuhledar, and along the forested front line in Luhansk region. What no one yet knows is which is the main threat.

The short odds are on the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Andreiy Chernyak, of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (GUR), said on February 1 that Putin had given the order to capture all of Donbas by March.

In central Donetsk, the battle for Bakhmut feels like the biggest danger. For half a year, Wagner mercenaries died in their hundreds, if not thousands, in doomed assaults on the city.

But over the past month, the sheer volume of Russian manpower has begun to produce results. Ukraine has been forced into tactical withdrawals, including from the town of Soledar.

Of three supply roads to Bakhmut, one has been cut, another is under constant fire, and a third is open but also targeted by Russian artillery.

Zelenskyy last week insisted that “no one will surrender Bakhmut”.

“We will fight for as long as we can. We see Bakhmut as our fortress ... If we have accelerated supply of weapons, especially long-range ones, we will not only not move from Bakhmut, we will start to de-occupy Donbas, which has been occupied since 2014,” he said.

But among many people on the ground, there is a feeling Ukraine will eventually have to withdraw to a new line of defence — as it did when retreating from Severodonetsk last summer.

The small town of Chasiv Yar, the last stop before Bakhmut itself, is rapidly emptying as residents flee before it too becomes a battlefield.

It would be a bitter blow to Ukraine. But even capturing Bakhmut would not necessarily lead to a breakthrough, officials in Donbas say.

“I don’t believe that,” said Oleksandr Honcharenko, the mayor of Kramatorsk, the largest Ukrainian-controlled town in Donetsk, when asked if the loss of Bakhmut could threaten his town.

Honcharenko said his confidence was based on faith in the Ukrainian armed forces.

But he also has geographic grounds for feeling secure.

Kramatorsk and its neighbouring towns of Druzhkivka and Konstantinivka are separated from Bakhmut by a highland of formidable and heavily fortified ridges and valleys.

There is no sense of panic amongst the soldiers or civilians in the area, just anticipation that the battle may have to move to a new line, where the dogged defence will continue.

“There is no other way out,” said Honcharenko. “The only way Putin will stop is if he is defeated.”

However, Bakhmut, which has drawn in vast numbers of Ukrainian troops, tanks, and other resources, may prove a diversion.

The Institute for the Study of War, a US defence think tank, predicts Russia’s main offensive will come further north in Luhansk, near the towns of Svatove and Kreminna. Those key junctions are in Russian hands, but have been the objective of a grinding Ukrainian advance since autumn.

A strike here might seek to catch the Ukrainians off balance in a less heavily defended area.