Avdivka nära omringning. Ny katastrof för Ukraina/Nato?

Anatoly Shariy
They took the Avdeevskaya industrial zone. Since 2014 she has been for the Armed Forces of Ukraine...
18:50

“If the Russians take control of the tracks, it will be a disaster,” Ivan says. Before the war, Avdiivka had more than 30,000 inhabitants. Now there are fewer than 2,000.

By disaster, this officer means that the Russians, by dominating the roads, can ensure the advance of their troops to surround Avdiivka from the north. The Russian assault is focused on the vicinity of the city’s coke factory, the largest production plant for this kind of fuel in Europe. The problem is that the enemy has already punched through on a two-mile stretch of the railway line.

Ukrainian military propaganda accounts on social networks have shared numerous videos of the destruction caused to the invading forces, especially by the cluster munitions provided by the United States. But Ivan shakes his head in disapproval: apart from the training of their troops, he says, the Russians are superior in every way, and they have resources to spare.

Ivan underlines the main difference between the Ukrainian and Russian armies in Zaporizhzhia: his squadron surrounded a Russian position defended by professional soldiers from an airborne division. The opposing force eventually ran out of ammunition and were repeatedly urged to surrender, according to his account. The enemy blew themselves up with grenades instead: “I don’t know any Ukrainians who have done this. They have a different conception of life: Russians are more prepared for war, and to die.” His words coincide with statements made to The Economist by Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Russian air superiority over the defending army is overwhelming, military officers like Seth say. The most cited models are the same: Orlan reconnaissance drones observe everything from three kilometers (1.8 miles) above the ground; they identify a target and within minutes Lancet bomb drones arrive. Seth also stresses that they have seen an increase in enemy Zoopark radars, which detect the coordinates of artillery positions from their sound waves.

The lack of ammunition for Ukrainian artillery has been confirmed by Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government and by Zaluzhnyi, who in an essay published by The Economist estimated that his troops would not have a sufficient stockpile to return to the attack for at least a year. Kyiv’s NATO allies have practically run out of munition reserves and the Western military industry will not be able to fully arm their own countries and Ukraine until the end of 2024, according to the estimates of Zaluzhnyi and U.S. and European defense analysis centers.

“The Russians are way ahead of us in trench engineering,” says Ivan, who agrees with other military personnel consulted this fall on the various fronts in Donetsk: “The Russians advance 300 or 500 meters and dig, advance 300 meters and dig and dig again. Their trenches are deeper and more secure than ours. They gain ground and secure it. When we take one of their positions, we are happy, because we are more secure [in their trenches] than in ours.”

Roman points out that the Russian ability to dig trenches is due to not having sufficient ammunition to prevent it. According to his calculations, if at the beginning of the war his mortars could fire one shell for every three enemy shells, now the difference is one to eight. “We can’t operate for long either because of the constant air strikes,” adds the officer.

Zaluzhnyi’s appraisal that the front has stagnated was denied by Zelenskiy, but it was a jolt of pessimism for the Ukrainian population and the international community. For the soldiers at the front, however, Ivan says: “Nothing he said was new to us. It was a message to our partners abroad, to warn that this is the situation.”