EconomistEarlier this year, a common view was that the war in Ukraine was settling into a stalemate, after the failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive last summer. That now seems optimistic. There is an alarming possibility that a big new Russian push in the next few months could punch through Ukraine’s defences and deep into the country.
Since the fall of Avdiivka in February, a bitterly fought-over coking town in Donetsk province, Russian forces have been pressing hard across several axes in eastern Ukraine. Although Russia paid a high price in blood and equipment to take Avdiivka—up to 17,000 soldiers may have been killed and many hundreds of tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles destroyed—its forces are pushing as far west of the town as they can in an effort to prevent Ukraine from forming stronger defensive lines there. So far, they have only taken some seven to ten kilometres at best. But a bigger push is expected in the summer.
map: the economist
“The next five to six months could be critical,” says Konrad Muzyka, an analyst at Rochan Consulting and author of the “Ukraine Conflict Monitor”, a website. The priorities for Ukraine, according to Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, are “manpower, fortifications and ammunition”.
Ukraine has performed miracles in pushing back Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and reopening grain exports from Odessa. And it is conducting an air campaign against infrastructure targets in Russia, especially oil refineries, using home-made drones. It is hitting Russia so hard that America has become concerned about the global oil price. But this remains primarily a ground war.
Ukraine is suffering from acute “shell hunger”, which is why it was forced to withdraw from Avdiivka. By prolific use of drones, the Ukrainians have been able to compensate partially for rationed shells. But drones cannot concentrate fire in the way that artillery can. The blocking of the Biden administration’s $61bn military-support package by pro-Donald Trump Republicans in Congress since last year has had direct consequences on the battlefield. So too has the failure of a European Union plan to come up with more than half of the million shells it had promised to deliver by this month.