Russia suffers a series of military, economic and diplomatic defeats
Russia is losing manpower at an unsustainable rate, is forced to accept Finland’s and Sweden’s decisions to join NATO, and is cutting its own gas sales to Europe, undermining revenues
Military, economic and diplomatic own-goals marked the twelfth week of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Its retreat from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has now pushed Russian forces back to their own border 40km away, and taken their artillery beyond the city’s range.
Russia seems to be contracting its plans for a grand pincer movement around Ukrainian forces in the country’s east, partly because it lacks manpower. A particularly humiliating defeat on May 11 is a case in point.
Ukrainian forces decimated the Russian 74th Motorized Rifle Brigade as it attempted to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in an effort to encircle defenders in Rubizhne. Satellite images show a destroyed pontoon bridge with clusters of destroyed Russian vehicles on either bank, where they were caught in transit. Of the 550 Russians sent into action, 485 were reportedly wounded or killed, along with 80 pieces of equipment.
Russian forces have also failed to branch out from a bridgehead in Izyum to perform an encirclement. Ukrainian forces, now reinforced by US-made M777 howitzers, are closely marking every Russian offensive.
Ukraine says Russia has now lost 28,000 men – a fifth of the manpower that launched its ‘special military operation’, and as much as 60% of the equipment.
Some Russian units in the Donbas are reportedly at 20% of their original manpower and have to team up with private military companies.
The head of Ukraine’s main intelligence directorate, Kyrylo Budanov, says Russia has begun a covert mobilisation, which includes reservists. Some 2,500 are said to be training near the border.
Russia may also be low on commanders, having dismissed many for poor performance.
After the twin failures at Izyum and Rubizhne, it is likely that Russians are abandoning a broader encirclement plan to focus on Luhansk oblast, believes Serhiy Haidai, head of the Luhansk Oblast administration.
The Washington-based the Institute for the Study of War agrees. “Russian forces may be abandoning efforts at a wide encirclement of Ukrainian troops along the Izyum-Slovyansk-Debaltseve line in favor of shallower encirclements of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk,” it says. “It is unclear if Russian forces can encircle, let alone capture, Severodonetsk and Lysychansk even if they focus their efforts on that much-reduced objective. Russian offensives have bogged down every time they hit a built-up area throughout this war.”
“Russia's strategic defeat is already obvious to everyone in the world,” declared Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “It's just that Russia doesn't have the courage to admit it yet... Therefore, our task is to fight until we… free our land, our people and establish our security.”
There also seems to be a looming shortage of hardware. US commerce secretary Gina Raimondo told Congress that Russia is using chips from refrigerators and dishwashers in its tanks because of a shortage of semiconductors.
Although the two sides are negotiating to exchange the last Ukrainian fighters evacuated from Mariupol for Russian POWs, there can be no substantive peace talks, says Thanos Veremis, professor emeritus of history at Athens University.
“There was a point when they might have come to an agreement, but now the Russians have committed so many atrocities it’s very difficult. This is when the real Ukraine is being born – it’s building its national narrative and hammering its identity,” he told Al Jazeera.
The gas war
Russia seems to be undermining its own revenues in tit-for-tat sanctions against Europe.
The trigger came on May 11, when Ukraine limited Russian gas transiting its territory to Europe for the first time. Ukraine said it partly closed the pipeline entering its territory at Sokhranovka after Russian-backed separatists siphoned off gas. Gas volumes fell from 96 million cubic metres to 72mcm overnight. A second Russian pipeline crossing Ukraine was not impeded.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia is committed to honouring gas contracts to Europe, but the next day Russian gas monopoly Gazprom retaliated by forbidding European pipelines in which it is a shareholder to transport its gas.
“A ban on transactions and payments to entities under sanctions has been implemented,” Gazprom said in a statement. The sanctioned entities lie in countries that have themselves initiated sanctions against Russia. Russia's Interfax news agency said these comprised Polish pipeline owner EuRoPol Gaz, Gazprom Germania, and 29 Gazprom Germania subsidiaries across Europe.
With Russian gas deliveries expected to fall further, European gas prices jumped 22%. Russia’s sanctions rest on a May 3 decree outlining “retaliatory special economic measures in connection with the unfriendly actions of some foreign states.” Putin gave the government 10 days to draft the sanctions list, which was published on May 13.
The retaliatory sanctions are likely to undermine a major source of revenue for Russia, but could also damage Europe, still highly dependent on Russian gas.
The diplomatic war
Russia has also suffered a diplomatic own-goal during the week. NATO enlargement, a basic reason for the Ukraine war, has now advanced thanks to it.
On May 12 Finland’s president Sauli Niinisto and prime minister Sanna Marin said in a joint statement that “Finland must apply for NATO membership without delay.”
Sweden followed three days later. “Sweden needs formal security guarantees that come with membership in NATO,” Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson told lawmakers in the capital Stockholm.
During this process, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lashed out at the United States for imposing “tough bloc discipline and an unconditional submission of the ‘allies’ to Washington’s diktat.”
“The EU will finally lose all attributes of independence and obediently join the Anglo-Saxon plans to assert the unipolar world order… in order to please the United States,” he said.
Russia had said it would retaliate by deploying nuclear weapons in Europe, but Putin diplomatically retreated instead. "As to enlargement, Russia has no problem with these states – none,” he said on May 16. “And so in this sense there is no immediate threat to Russia from an expansion [of NATO] to include these countries," Putin announced. "But the expansion of military infrastructure into this territory would certainly provoke our response," he said.
“A threat has value while you don’t have to make good on it,” says Konstantinos Filis, who directs the Institute of Global Affairs at the American College of Greece. “Russia threatened Sweden and Finland with consequences if they entered NATO. Once they did so, it was humiliating to insist. Putin was forced to soften his stance, to say… they will suffer consequences if they turn against Russia. Of course Putin knows that both countries have previously said they don’t want to host NATO bases and missile systems,” Filis told Al Jazeera.
NATO, whose decisions require unanimity, still has to overcome the objections of Turkey, which accuses members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units who’ve sought asylum in Finland and Sweden of being terrorists.
Timeline: Week twelve of Russia’s war in Ukraine
May 11
Ukrainian troops continue to press the offensive northeast of Kharkiv, taking the village of Pytomnyk, and pushing Russians forces into defensive positions. The Ukrainian general staff claims the Russians are also going on the defensive around Izyum, transferring troops east to Luhansk.
Russian forces continue to bombard the Azovstal plant in Mariupol. Ukraine says it is offering an exchange of badly wounded defenders there for Russian POWs. She later clarifies that discussions concern the exchange of 38 people on each side.
Deputy prime minister Irina Vereshchuk says Russia has deported some 460,000 Ukrainians to 6,500 camps across Russia. “We are talking about more than 10,000 children. We know where they are,” she told France’s BFMTV. Mariupol mayoral advisor Petro Andryushchenko says missing citizens are being taken to “former correctional colony No. 52” in the village of Olenivka in Donetsk.
Ukraine for the first time limits Russian gas transiting its territory to Europe, cutting by a quarter the flow of gas through one of two major pipelines.
Protesters douse Russia’s ambassador to Poland, Serhiy Andreev, with red paint as he lays a wreath for the Russian dead on the 77th anniversary of the end of World War Two.
May 12
Russian forces use artillery to slow down Ukrainian troops advancing north of Kharkiv.
Russian forces complete their takeover of Rubizhne in Ukraine’s east, and say they have secured Voevodyvka, a southern suburb of Rubizhne, suggesting they will strike out at neighbouring Severdonetsk next. But their attempts to fan out from Izyum are losing energy.
Russia continues air and artillery strikes against the Azovstal plant in Mariupol.
Ukraine says that since the beginning of the war it has exposed 88 sabotage groups and detained 750 saboteurs.
Ukraine’s finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, says the war has so far cost $8.3bn on military and humanitarian expenditures – money that would have been spent on the country’s development. Ukraine’s total spending in 2021 stood at $62.28bn.
Finland announces it will seek NATO membership.
Journalists uncover more evidence of extrajudicial killings by Russian soldiers in Bucha.
Ukraine is accused of being behind an attack on the Russian border village of Solokhi, where one is killed and seven wounded. It is the first Russian death on Russian soil as a result of the war.
The UNHCR says the number of Ukrainian refugees has passed the six-million mark.
May 13
The Ukrainian general staff reports for the first time that Russian units are focusing on retreating from Kharkiv. Russian forces make unsuccessful attempts to break out on two fronts, outwards from Izium and towards Slovyansk.
Russian forces take control of the western entrance of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol. While retreating, Ukrainian defenders continue to resist.
EU high representative Josep Borrell announces another 500 million euros’ worth of military aid to Ukraine, bringing the EU total to 2bn euros. The money will be spent on tanks, armoured vehicles, heavy artillery and ammunition, he says.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Ankara cannot support
NATO membership for Sweden and Finland, because those countries are “guesthouses for terrorist organisations”. Turkey accuses members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units of being terrorists. Erdogan has also outlawed followers of the Muslim scholar Fethullah Gulen.
Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia says it will hold a referendum on joining Russia on July 17. Moscow sent troops to back the region’s independence in a 2008 war with Georgia. Since then, only Russia and a few other countries and regions have recognised it, including other Russian breakaway regions – Transnistria, the Luhansk People’s Republic and the Donetsk People’s Republic.
May 14
The Ukraine general staff say two Russian battalion tactical groups have been moved up to the Severdonetsk region in the Donbas, and are preparing for an assault on that town as well as Soledar and Bakhmut.
In Kharkiv, they are trying to prevent an advance of counterattacking Ukrainian forces to the Russian border.
The Ukraine general staff say 600 wounded soliders are in need of medical evacuation at the Azovstal plant in Mariupol.
Russian president Vladimir Putin tells his Finnish counterpart that joining NATO “would be a mistake” because there is no threat to Finnish security from Russia. “Such a change in the country’s political orientation can have a negative impact on Russian-Finnish relations developed over years in a spirit of good neighbourliness and cooperation between partners,” a statement released by the Kremlin said.
May 15
Russian forces continue to build up material for a battle to take Severdonetsk in the east.
Sweden announces it will apply for NATO membership, ending two centuries of neutrality.
NATO foreign ministers gather in Berlin to discuss the candidacies of Finland and Sweden. Turkey confirms its opposition.
May 16
Ukraine’s defence ministry says its troops have advanced to the Russian border 40km north of Kharkiv, and Russian defensive efforts are focusing on preventing an incursion towards Belgorod in Russia. The Institute for the Study of War believes Russian troops may deliberately maintain a position just inside Ukraine to prevent shelling of Russian civilian areas from the boder.
Ukrainian general staff report that US M777 howitzers are in use in the field.
Ukraine says it has evacuated 53 injured fighters from the Azovstal plant in Mariupol to a medical facility in Novoazovsk. Another 211 people are evacuated to Olenivka, controlled by Russia-backed separatists.
Putin says Russia has no objection to Finland and Sweden joining NATO, as long as no NATO bases and assets are placed on their soil.
May 17
Ukraine’s military declares an end to the Azovstal operation in Mariupol. Zelenskyy says negotiators are trying to secure the release of all the remaining defenders of the Azovstal plant – an estimated 600. “Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes alive,” he says in a national address. Russia’s defence ministry confirms that 265 Ukrainians have surrendered, 51 of them injured.