Ukraine is holding out despite stalled US aid, but fears ‘deep advances’ by Russia
Ukraine managed to largely halt a four-week advance by Russian forces, but Trump Republicans may be weakening it
Russian rhetoric dialled up in the runup to president Vladimir Putin’s expected re-election on Sunday. Putin reminded the world of Moscow’s nuclear readiness and military reporters amplified battlefield skirmishes against Ukrainian defenders.
Not all of Putin’s pre-election news coverage went as planned. Ukraine scored drone strikes against Moscow and Russian oil facilities, and a new insurgency made its presence felt on Russian soil.
Putin’s nuclear threat on Wednesday - the second time in as many weeks – was measured. In a pre-recorded television interview he said Russia’s nuclear forces were ready “from a military-technical point of view” and touted them as the most advanced in the world.
His comments, six days after Sweden officially joined NATO as its 32nd member, were mild compared to his warning a fortnight ago, after France’s president Emmanuel Macron left open the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine.
“They must realise that we also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory. All this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilisation. Don’t they get that?” Putin said on February 29.
Putin is running for a third consecutive, six-year term. He has passed constitutional amendments suspending a ban on more than two consecutive terms for himself personally, and allowing him to rule until 2036, leading both Russian and Western critics to label him illicit.
Last October, the Council of Europe described his presidency as a “de facto dictatorship” and urged its member states to “recognise Vladimir Putin as illegitimate”.
Russian crawl
Russian forces continued to make marginal advances on the eastern front for a fourth straight week after the fall of Avdiivka on February 17, but the pace of these advances had slowed considerably, suggesting Ukraine had managed to absorb Russian momentum.
On March 8, geolocated footage showed they entered the village of Tonenke and advanced towards Berdychi, both west of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region. Russian forces had already been on the edges of both settlements a week earlier, and marked little progress.
Ukraine’s Tavria Group of forces, which is fighting in the area, said this front had stabilised. “The advance has actually stopped. The Russian military is making small movements in this direction,” said spokesman Dmytro Lykhovyi.
There were other minor Russian advances in Donetsk. Russian forces have been trying to roll back Ukrainian gains west of Bakhmut, and on March 10 geolocated footage showed they had entered the village of Ivanivske.
Russian forces captured the village of Shevchenko, southeast of Donetsk City, on March 10, and the following day advanced in several places along the front in the area.
Towards the northern end of the front, geolocated footage showed that Russian forces approached the village of Terny from the east and reached the outskirts of Synkivka, two settlements in Donetsk and Kharkiv, respectively.
On the whole, though, these advances were measured in hundreds of metres, and the overall shape of the front remained unchanged.
What seems to continue to be instrumental in Russian minor successes on the ground is the use of glide bombs. These are normally massive conventional inertial bombs carrying 675kg of explosive, fitted with fins and tails to fly further and strike with greater accuracy. Bild reported that Russia is now mass producing these.
Russian military reporters said Russia also produced an improved glide bomb design this year including engines and satellite guidance systems that raised its range from 40-70km to 95km. These powered bombs were reportedly smaller, but enabled Russian planes dropping them to fly a little further away from the front, reducing their vulnerability to Ukrainian air defences, which claimed 15 aircraft in February and early March.
Ukrainian leap
While holding the front more-or-less steady, Ukraine focused on striking deep inside Russia.
On March 9, several explosions were recorded in Rostov, less than 100km from the Ukrainian border, with at least one geolocated to a Beriev plant repairing and refurbishing A-50 radar and reconnaissance planes. Ukraine has targeted these planes, destroying two this year, because they spy on Ukrainian positions and give fighter-bombers their co-ordinates. Russia’s defence ministry claimed it had shot down all 47 drones over four border regions, including Rostov.
Three days later, Ukraine again sent a large salvo of drones – Russia’s defence ministry claimed to have shot down 58 – this time targeting energy infrastructure. Ryazan governor Pavel Malkov said one drone struck the Ryazan refinery, 180km southeast of Moscow and about 500km from the Ukrainian border, starting a fire. Ukrainian news outlet Suspilne quoted Security Service (SBU) sources saying two further refineries had been targeted, in Rostov and St. Petersburg, as well as two airfields. There was no evidence that those strikes had succeeded.
Ukraine’s military intelligence said pro-Ukrainian Russian forces had staged a border incursion on March 12, clashing with Russian forces in border villages in Belgorod and Kursk. The Russian Volunteer Force (RDK) and Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR) are anti-Putin paramilitaries that first attacked Russia in March 2023. Russian sources first denied the incursion, then claimed to have repelled it.
Whether or not it succeeded in the past week, Ukraine has been following through on tactics that have succeeded in the past, striking oil refineries and sinking or disabling as much as half of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
But in interviews with Western media, Ukrainian fighters on the frontlines are raising the alarm about encroaching shortages of ammunition, as US military aid remains frozen in a Republican-controlled Congress. The latest such warning came in Der Spiegel on Tuesday [March 12], when Ukrainian servicemen warned they could not hold out forever under current conditions.
Even Ukraine’s new commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, warned on Wednesday that “there is a threat of enemy units advancing deep into our battle formations.”
“Ukrainian shortages of ammunition and other war materiel resulting from delays in the provision of US military assistance may be making the current Ukrainian front line more fragile than the relatively slow Russian advances in various sectors would indicate,” wrote the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
Ukraine’s European allies have been trying to make up for the US shortfall. Britain announced it would spend $160mn buying 10,000 drones for Ukraine. Czech officials said they had raised enough money from partners to purchase 300,000 artillery shells located around the world for Ukraine. The Czech Republic was leading an effort to locate 800,000 artillery shells outside Europe and deliver them to Ukraine. Germany, which refrains from sending its medium-range Taurus missile to Ukraine because Russia considers it an escalation, was reportedly discussing a plan to send the missiles to Britain as replacements for Storm Shadow missiles Britain would send Ukraine.
The administration of US president Joe Biden said it was sending $300mn of urgently needed military aid cobbled together from savings in the US defence budget. But none of this made up for the absence of $60.1bn in military aid the US was planning to send in 2024.