Fmr. NATO general: Putin has 9 month window to win the war
Russia gains ground as it focuses its offensive and its deep resources in men and material begin to show
A resurgent Russian army refocused its hitherto lumbering efforts to claim Ukraine’s east, making its first significant advances there in the 13th week of the war.
Russian forces re-launched offensives at three main points surrounding a spearhead of Ukrainian defenders, at Izyum to the north, Severdonetsk to the east, and Popanska to the south.
At Popanska, combined forces of Russian conscripts and mercenaries from the Wagner group broke through Ukrainian defences, taking several settlements on May 20. Three days later they captured Myronovsky, the starting point of a highway leading to Slovyansk, where all three prongs of the Russian attack are likely aiming to converge.
On the northern front, Russian artillery at Izyum sprang to life at the same time, in what Ukrainian authorities described as the opening act to a full assault. Russian forces appear to be attempting a pincer movement from Izyum and Popasna to isolate Ukraine’s entire tactical army of about 50,000 men in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions to the east.
On May 21 the battle for Severdonetsk, the easternmost Ukrainian-held city, began in earnest. To the city’s east, a punishing bombardment began. To its west, Russian military bloggers said Russian forces destroyed one of two bridges connecting it to Lysychansk across the Siversky Donetsk river and complicating Ukrainian lines of supply.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia’s bombardment was turning the Donbas into “hell”.
The governor of Luhansk oblast, Serhiy Haidai, said Severdonetsk remained firmly in Ukrainian hands on May 24 amid darkening prospects. “The situation is very difficult and unfortunately it is only getting worse. It is getting worse with every day and even with every hour,” Haidai said in a video on Telegram. “Shelling is increasing more and more. The Russian army has decided to completely destroy [key city] Severodonetsk.”
Russian tactics became notorious at the southern port of Mariupol, which finally surrendered on May 21 after more than two months of aerial and artillery bombardment reduced it to rubble.
Armies cannot turn on a dime
Ukraine has fought valiantly and driven the Russians back from the northern cities of Kiev, Chernihiv, Sumy and Kharkiv in recent weeks, but its counteroffensive hasn’t been sustained because it needs time to assimilate Western reinforcements, says a retired NATO commander.
“Tanks and armoured vehicles need an initial stage of personal training and team training for the driver, gunner, reloader and commander,” says Lt.-Gen. Konstantinos Loukopoulos, who has taught tank warfare at military academies in Kiev and Moscow.
“They need tactical training including test firing and exercises, which cannot be done in a few weeks. The training cycle is at least six months, and that doesn’t change in wartime,” he said.
The US, Britain, Canada, France, Germany and the Czech Republic are among those who’ve pledged various types of armour and cannon, and that complicates matters, said Loukopoulos. For instance, Out of ninety M777 howitzers sent by the US, about 18 have been absorbed, he says. “The 12 or 14 César [self-propelled howitzers] from France have arrived. We don’t know if they’re being used.”
“After [Russian president Vladimir] Putin’s illusions about winning the war in 96 hours, the illusions began on the Western side,” he says.
“For Ukraine to absorb the weapons from the West and make them operational, form the right units and train them, it needs 8-9 months. It can’t pull active units from the front to train them.”
That, he believes, is the timeframe within which Putin must win the war on the ground and reach a negotiated settlement.
“Under the present balance of forces, the general trend is in favour of the Russians. Right now nothing can change that,” he says. “After a few months, with training of reserve units, there could be a [Ukrainian] strategic counteroffensive that could throw the Russians out.”
Loukopoulos believes this would likely be done by Ukraine seizing Russian territory it could exchange for its own in negotiations. “Can the Ukrainians create a fact on the ground to counter Russian gains? Right now they cannot.”
“Whether we like it or not, Russia has the political and military initiative. The West is reacting to what Putin is doing.”
The fate of Mariupol
Adding to Ukraine’s woes was the final surrender of Mariupol on May 21. Days earlier, Ukraine had given the port’s last defenders the order to stop fighting in an effort to save their lives. Russia said it held 2,431 Ukrainian prisoners of war who had been holed up in the underground nuclear bunkers of the Azovstal metallurgical complex. To back up its claim that it is de-Nazifying Ukraine, Moscow released video of surrendering soldiers stripped to reveal tattoos of swastikas and Adolph Hitler.
The surrender not only deprived Ukraine of a large number of experienced fighters, who will now have to be swapped for Russian POWs. It marked the fall of a symbol of Ukrainian resistance against the odds.
Denis Pushilin, the leader of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, said the Azovstal plant will not be restored, during a victory tour of the city. Instead, he said, Mariupol will be developed as a resort town. His reasoning was that Western sanctions will hamper sales of iron and steel exports from a Russian-controlled territory, but Mariupol can benefit from Russia’s economic isolation by wooing a captive Russian tourism market.
The Azovstal plant used to export thousands of tonnes of Iron and steel. It was one of two metallurgical plants in the city, representing a $2bn investment by Metinvest. The Ukrainian government, too, had invested $600mn remodelling the city with new roads, parks and a children’s hospital.
Mariupol’s Ukrainian municipal authority believes Russia’s victory over it has killed 22,000 civilians. It has also displaced three quarters of the population and reduced the city to rubble. Even Russian occupiers admit that 60% of its buildings are damaged beyond repair.
The apocalyptic reality of this Russian victory may drive Ukrainian determination along the eastern front. The question is whether Ukrainian material shortages will be insurmountable.
Timeline: Week 13 of Russia’s war in Ukraine
May 18
In the east, Russian forces conduct a series of unsuccessful breakout operations. Russia conducts heavy artillery and aerial bombardment of Severdonetsk.
The Russian defence ministry says 694 Ukrainian fighters at the Azovstal plant in Mariupol have surrendered in the past 24 hours, bringing the total since May 16 to 959.
The European Commission announces a 220bn euro plan to ditch Russian fossil fuels over five years. The plan involves massive spending on gas infrastructure to promote LNG imports from alternative sources, and speeding up existing plans to install renewable energy capacity.
May 19
Russian forces suffer heavy losses after a failed assault on Velyka Komyshuvakha, 23km southwest of Izyum. Russian forces launching north and west of Popasna also fail to take a series of settlements, but claim to have surrounded Ukrainian forces in Zolote and Hirske.
Russian forces conduct artillery strikes in an unsuccessful effort to regain lost ground around Kharkiv, where Ukraine says it has liberated 23 settlements since May 5. Russian forces manage to retake Rubizhne (not to be confused with the Rubizhne in Donetsk).
May 20
Russian forces reportedly break through Ukrainian defences north and west of Popasna. To the north they are said to take Volodymyrivka, Lypove and Komyshuvakha. Mercendaries of the Russian Wagner group reportedly take Trypillya and Vyskrivka to the west. Russian forces also claim Troitske, south of Popasna. Russian forces were also reportedly trying to encircle Lyman, and were in the process of storming Yarova and Svyatohirsk, both west of the city.
Russian defence minister Sergey Shoigu claims 1,908 Ukrainian fighters at the Azovstal plant in Mariupol have surrendered. The Red Cross says it has registered hundreds of evacuees from the plant.
In the north, Russian forces are attempting to recapture settlements northeast of Kharkiv.
Germany and Qatar sign an agreement to deepen their energy partnership. “Germany will develop its infrastructure to be in a position to import liquefied gas by ship,” Scholz tells journalists at a joint news conference with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in Berlin.
Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder bows to pressure to resign his seat on the board of Russian oil giant Rosneft. He also says he declined a position on the board of gas monopoly Gazprom. Schroeder was instrumental in paving the way for the Nordstream 2 pipeline to be built, which was to carry Russian gas to Germany.
May 21
Ukraine says Russian forces are launching an offensive from Donetsk to encircle the Luhansk region from the west. Russians continue to make small advances southeast of Izyum.
The battle for Severdonetsk begins in earnest. Russian forces continue to try to fan outward from Popasna, in an effort to drive towards Severdonetsk from the south.
Russia’s defence ministry says it has full control of Mariupol, following the evacuation of the last defenders of the Azovstal plant there.
Russia reinforces its positions north and east of Kharkiv, guarding against any possible further Ukrainian counteroffensives.
May 22
The Ukrainian general staff says Russian forces continue to shell frontline settlements southeast of Izyum as they prepare for a full-scale assault. Russian forces continue a ground assault on Lysychansk and Severdonetsk from the east, accompanied by heavy bombardment, without any reported advances.
May 23
Russian forces intensify shelling around Izyum, as they prepare for a renewed ground offensive. The Russian assault on the outskirts of Severdonetsk makes marginal gains.
The Ukrainian general staff says Russia is preparing to replenish battlefield losses with damaged tanks and aged T-62 tanks currently in storage.
Ukraine sentences the first Russian soldier convicted of war crimes to life in prison. 21-yer old tank commander Denis Shishimarin shot and killed 62 year-old Oleksandr Shelipov in the northeastern village of Chupakivkha four days into the invasion.
Denis Pushilin, head of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, says the soldiers who surrendered at Mariupol’s Azovstal plant will stand trial in Donetsk Oblast.
In the south, the Zaporizhia local government says Russian troops are accumulating to prepare for a Ukrainian counteroffensive and possibly a renewed Russian offensive.
Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev publicly resigns in protest against the war. “For twenty years of my diplomatic career I have seen different turns of our foreign policy, but never have I been so ashamed of my country as on February 24 of this year,” he writes on social media. The resignation echoes that of US diplomat Brady Kiesling, who resigned in February 2003 in protest against George W. Bush’s Second Gulf War.
The UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights officially records 3,930 Ukrainian civilian deaths, though Ukrainian authorities believe the number to be in the tens of thousands. The UNHCR says there are more than 6.5mn Ukrainian refugees in Europe.
May 24
Intense fighting continues in the east, especially around Severdonetsk and Lysychansk, Ukraine’s general staff says: “The enemy is carrying out intense fire impact along the entire line of encounter... The greatest combat activity is observed in … the vicinity of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk.”
Russian forces are reported to be advancing towards Severdonetsk, towards Bakhmut and towards Lyman, in the eastern, central and northern sectors of the Donetsk-Luhansk region respectively.
“Now we are observing the most active phase of the full-scale aggression which Russia unfolded against our country,” Ukraine defence ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk says.
Workers in Mariupol have found 200 decomposing bodies under the rubble of a single building, municipal advisor Petro Andryushchencko says, without specifying when the bodies were found. They are presumed to be civilians who were sheltering in the basement when the building was bombed.
Ukraine estimates more than 29,000 Russians have died in the war so far.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his government’s top priority is the exchange of thousands of prisoners of war. “Several thousand of our people are in captivity after the blockade of Mariupol, Azovstal. Besides, there were people from Donbass... These are absolutely brave people, I am immensely grateful to them. They did a great job. Confident, heroic, historical. We have to exchange them," Zelenskyy tells world leaders gathered at the Davos Economic Forum in Switzerland, saying this will require international pressure on Russia.
Ukraine says it is readying charges of war crimes including murder and torture of civilians against 48 Russian soldiers, and has a list of 600 suspects.