Ukrainians show their mettle amid blackouts, snow and static battlefields
Neither Russia nor Ukraine made territorial gains in the 40th week of war, as casualties mounted and weapons stocks dwindled and civilians went without water, heat and light
A Ukrainian gunner braces for the noise of the cannon (Courtesy Ukrainian Armed Forces)
The Ukrainian people suffered some of the worst power and water outages yet during the 40th week of Russia’s war (November 24-30), as the Ukrainian army held back raging daily offensives in the east of the country.
On November 23, air defences shot down 51 out of 70 Russian cruise missiles targeting energy infrastructure, a remarkable batting average, but the ones that got through still did extensive damage.
Residents of the capital, Kiyv, huddled in cafes that used generators to offer light, heat and wifi in sub-zero temperatures, and collected rainwater from drainpipes or melted snow.
“People shiver in dark, cold homes. They cook on camping stoves in candlelit kitchens. They put on all their clothes to sleep and cover themselves with every blanket they own,” wrote Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands.
Timofyi Mylovanov, a professor at the Kyiv School of Economics, wrote about his personal experience on the third day of the Kyiv blackout on social media on November 25.
“Electricity came back at 1:30 am. I was asleep, exhausted. But our building has some electrical equipment with a nasty alarm that goes on when the electricity switches on or off. It used to annoy me because it is quite disturbing. Now, I love it. It woke me up. I quickly plugged in power banks, phones, computers to charge. I switched on our electric heater. My wife was half asleep but she managed to tell me what I can quickly cook… electricity did not last long. But we did have warm food in the morning and [a] hot shower,” Mylovanov wrote.
The head of Ukraine’s state grid operator said practically all big thermal power stations had been hit. A barrage of missiles and drones has targeted electric plants and power lines since October 8, when a truck exploded on the Kerch bridge linking Crimea to mainland Russia.
Until then, Russia had fired missiles indiscriminately into population centres and has been accused of intentionally targeting civilians since the beginning of the war.
Ukrainian defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov said Russia had fired more than 16,000 missiles at Ukraine since the start of the war, 97% of which had landed on civilians. Only about 500 had landed on purely military targets, he said. Approximately 220 had landed on energy infrastructure, but those relatively few had clearly had the greatest impact on daily life.
In a symbolic vote, the European Parliament designated Russia a “state sponsor of terrorism”, with 498 votes in favour, 58 against and 44 abstentions. The “against” vote came mostly from far right parties such as Alternative für Deutschland and Rassemblement National, and communist MEPs.
Seven foreign ministers from the Baltic region visited Kyiv on November 28 in a show of solidarity. “Despite Russia’s bomb rains and barbaric brutality, Ukraine will win!” they said.
Arms production a key issue
More than nine months into the war, arms production was emerging as a key challenge for both sides.
Russia has turned to Iran and North Korea for drones and ordnance, respectively. NATO allies haven’t ramped up production capability to replace weapons they have been donating to Ukraine from their arsenals.
Ukraine’s military intelligence said Russia was was using front companies to circument sanctions and purchase Western-made microchips that are essential for its missiles and drones, as well as for its GLONASS global positioning system that guides these weapons to their co-ordinates. It named companies in the US, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium and the UK.
“Russia continues to purchase microchips with GLONASS capability thanks to numerous front companies and distributors,” said Ukraine’s military intelligence.
Those chips are used in the Iranian Shahed-136 drones that have devastated Ukraine’s electric infrastructure, as well as Russia’s Iskander and Kalibr cruise missiles. Military intelligence called on Western manufacturers to simply stop producing GLONASS-enabled chips altogether.
Reuters reported that the Pentagon was considering buying small, cheap precision-guided bombs as a way to keep Ukraine supplied, amid dwindling supplies of ready-to-use hardware in the US arsenal.
The Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs (GLSDB) could be in production by spring, assembled from readily available GBU-39 bombs and M26 rocket motors at a cost of about $40,000 each. The bomb would be GPS-enabled and could hit targets within 1m of accuracy at a range of 150km. Six contractors, including Boeing and Saab, would have to be involved in its production.
Lockheed Martin is meanwhile trying to double production capacity of 96 HIMARS launchers a year to face mounting orders.
Stalemate on the ground
Throughout the week, Russian forces kept up a barrage against Bakhmut, Avdiivka and other towns in the Donetsk region, which Russia has been prioritising since withdrawing from Kyiv a month into the war.
Ukrainian defenders had established underground bunkers and were successfully holding the line, in what increasingly resembles the static tactics of the western front in World War One.
After surrendering the west bank of the Dnipro river in early November, Russia, too appears to be digging in.
Around Svatove, in northern Luhansk province, photographs posted on social media showed newly-dug Russian ditches, anti-tank concrete triangles known as dragons’ teeth, and personnel trenches. The idea, according to military analysts, was to slow tanks down with the ditches and dragons’ teeth so that soldiers could fire anti-tank missiles at them from the trenches.
Military reporters also posted satellite images of Russian defensive lines being built in the southern Kherson region, 20km from the front line. Ukraine’s military intelligence said Russian forces were preparing two main zones of defence.
“They are creating a defensive strip both on the left bank of the Dnipro in the Kherson region and on the administrative border with Crimea, in the north of the peninsula. In particular, two strategic areas are being built in the northern part of Dzhankoy district,” said Andriy Chernyak, a representative of military intelligence.
Despite the lack of progress on the ground, battles were still being fought and Ukraine said Russian casualties were especially heavy in Luhansk.
“The number of civilian hospitals used by the enemy to treat exclusively Russian military personnel increased,” said Ukraine’s general staff on November 26. “For the civilian population of the region, medical services are becoming less and less accessible. The hospitals of Krasnyi Luch, Antratsyt and Lutugine settlements are full of wounded occupiers, and morgues are filled.”
Pressure for peace
The danger of a static battlefield was that Western allies would press Ukraine to conclude a premature and unsatisfactory peace, argued Hamza Karčić, who teaches political science at the University of Sarajevo, in an Op/Ed for Al Jazeera.
“If Zelenskyy were forced to allow autonomy in the east, he would risk overseeing the establishment of a Republika Srpska-type entity,” he said, referring to the Serbian element of the Bosnian federation that emerged from the Dayton Talks in December 1995.
“This would effectively give pro-Russian rebels a say in the governance of Ukraine, likely through veto powers akin to those of Republika Srpska, which would render the country dysfunctional like Bosnia has been. This would not only upend the development of the country but also block its integration into the EU and NATO,” Karčić wrote, concluding, “Ukraine needs to step up its efforts to change facts on the ground.”