Ukrainians advance as Russia shells Odesa
What happened
Ukrainian forces made a major push to the south this week, mobilizing thousands of Western-trained reinforcements who had been held in reserve during the first eight weeks of the counteroffensive. About 100 Ukrainian armored vehicle units moved south of Orikhiv, a town in Zaporizhzhia Oblast some 70 miles east of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, with the goal of grinding all the way to the coast to sever the land bridge between the Crimean Peninsula and Russian-occupied Ukraine. They faced a dug-in Russian defense that includes tank traps and barrier minefields stretching as much as 10 miles across. “The enemy clings to every meter of occupied land, provides powerful resistance, and uses its reserves,” said Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar, “and at the same time suffers significant losses.”
Seeking to replace some of the 220,000 Russians killed or wounded in the conflict, Russian legislators in Moscow raised the maximum age for new conscripts from 27 to 30. On the battlefield, meanwhile, Russia stepped up its assault on the port city of Odesa. Since withdrawing last week from an international deal to allow grain to be exported from Ukraine via the Black Sea, Russia has bombarded Odesa and other ports relentlessly, blowing up transport infrastructure and grain warehouses. The port of Reni, which lies just across the Danube River from NATO member Romania, some 700 feet away, was peppered with at least 15 drone strikes. Romanian President Klaus Iohannis called that attack an “escalation” that “poses serious risks” to the region’s security.
What the columnists said
“Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness” can do only so much, said Daniel Michaels in The Wall Street Journal. Russian forces, while plagued by disorder, “remain robust enough” to man the 600-mile, heavily fortified front, and they dominate the skies. While Kyiv has scored noteworthy hits, including a drone strike on Moscow this week that inflicted damage near the Defense Ministry headquarters, the battle risks “descending into a stalemate.”
Ukraine’s losses are more than military, said Trudy Rubin in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Vladimir Putin has greenlit the bombardment of not just the ports but also the “exquisitely beautiful” Odesa city center, a UNESCO World Heritage site. A Russian missile blew half the roof off Transfiguration Cathedral, which had been destroyed by Stalin and reconsecrated in 2010. So much for Putin’s “nauseating pose” as a defender of Christianity and Ukraine’s Russian-speakers.
Ukraine badly needs weapons—especially ammunition, said George F. Will in The Washington Post. Right now, we can’t supply enough, as “the U.S. defense workforce is one-third what it was in 1985.” We’d have to scale up capabilities at a furious pace, as we did during World War II. That may sound like a big ask. But as Gen. Douglas MacArthur said, “all military disasters can be explained with two words: ‘too late.’” We must start cranking out the millions of rounds of ammunition it will take for Ukraine to win this war now. Time is not on Ukraine’s side.