Russia’s incremental combat gains put stress on Ukraine
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces have scored small territorial gains along Ukraine’s eastern front in recent weeks, using their manpower advantage in grueling battles and prompting Ukrainian authorities to consider a push to mobilize up to 500,000 soldiers to sustain the exhausting fight next year.
The chief of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, said this week that he saw no alternative to a large-scale mobilization to make up for Ukraine’s losses. And President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that his army chiefs have asked him to mobilize 450,000 to 500,000 men.
Although many Ukrainians have yet to be drafted into the military, authorities are reluctant to resort to mass conscription for fear of stirring up social tensions.
Most recently, Russian troops have been closing in on the city of Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold in the Donetsk region. The capture of Avdiivka would be a strategic success for Russia — the city is a linchpin of Ukrainian defenses in the region — and would deal a blow to Ukrainian morale.
Russia’s recent advances near Avdiivka, as well as around such cities as Kupiansk, Bakhmut and Marinka, are also further evidence that Russia has firmly seized the initiative on much of the battlefield, after Ukraine’s top general acknowledged last month that his country’s summer counteroffensive had stalled.
Russia is making that progress at a critical moment for the government in Ukraine. Political infighting in Washington and in the European Union has blocked the delivery of military and financial aid packages that Ukraine says it desperately needs to hold its lines against Russia.
“Currently, the situation on the front line is difficult and is gradually deteriorating,” Yehor Chernev, the deputy chair of the Ukrainian Parliament’s committee on national security, defense and intelligence, said in an interview. “Without American ammunition, we are beginning to lose territory that was hard won this summer.”
On Friday, departing Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands announced that his government was preparing to send Ukraine a first batch of 18 F-16 fighter jets, the powerful aircraft that Ukraine has long been lobbying for and on which Ukrainian pilots have begun training.
Ukraine has argued that the jets could help it challenge Russia’s air superiority in some parts of the battlefield.
Since launching offensive operations near Avdiivka in October, Russia has gained a total of about 7 miles in all directions around the city, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
“But it has cost them dearly,” Oleksandr Shtupun, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian army, told national television Wednesday. He noted that Russia had suffered 25,000 casualties in the east over two months, most of them around Avdiivka.
Although these figures could not be independently verified, Britain’s military intelligence agency said last month that Russia was probably experiencing the highest casualty rates of the war so far and that the battle for Avdiivka was likely the reason.
Nonetheless, Russia’s incremental gains largely result from the sheer mass of its army.
“I would say the motto of their attacks is ‘We have more people than you have ammunition, bullets, rockets and shells,’ ” Tykhyi, a major fighting with the Ukrainian National Guard in Avdiivka, said in audio messages, using only his call sign to identify himself, as per Ukrainian military rules.
Russia’s offensive push in the east has consisted of a series of localized assaults following an arc that stretches from Kupiansk in the north to Marinka more than 120 miles to the south.