Russian President Vladimir Putin may take some consolation this weekend from the news that his forces in Ukraine have been slowly making progress with their Donbas offensive.
he Kremlin strongman could certainly do with an ego-boosting victory of some sort, even though it may be premature to start the celebrations.
Having failed to take Ukrainian capital Kyiv after the February 24 invasion, and having been forced to pull back from its second city, Kharkiv, Putin’s battle-scarred forces are now focused on a far more limited objective — the seizure of the Donbas region of south-eastern Ukraine.
While it is now a key war aim, it is a much downsized goal from Putin’s original wildly ambitious invasion aims that envisaged the overthrow of charismatic President Volodymyr Zelensky and his replacement by a puppet regime in Kyiv.
The Russians seem to have learned lessons from setbacks in the earlier phase of the three-month-old war when long armoured columns seeking to seize large swathes of territory just ran out of steam.
In the Donbas they have been focusing on smaller and smaller areas to achieve gains, without cutting logistic re-supply lines. They have made gradual progress, capturing towns, villages and territory.
They have also been supported by local pro-Moscow separatist fighters with good local knowledge.
Last week Lyman was the latest city to be captured, and Russian forces moved closer to surrounding the larger city of Sievierodonetsk.
According to an intelligence update from the UK Defence Ministry yesterday, Lyman is “strategically important because it is the site of a major railway junction, and also gives access to key rail and road bridges over the Siverskyy Donets River”.
UK Defence Intelligence analysts considered that in the coming days, Russian forces are likely to prioritise forcing a crossing of the river, giving them an advantage in the offensive’s next phase, when they are likely to advance on key Ukrainian-held cities. Ukrainian forces have been mounting strong resistance, and it has been reported that the US is to give them powerful, long-range multiple launch rocket systems.
This will enable the Ukrainians to accurately strike more distant targets, hitting armoured vehicles, artillery units, troop concentrations and logistics supply hubs.
The new deliveries will supplement the shorter-range howitzers supplied this month by the US and other allies, and already deployed.
In the Donbas, it has become a war of manoeuvre, both sides gaining and losing territory in recent weeks. Intelligence sources noted on Friday that Ukraine “retains control of multiple defended sectors, denying Russia full control of the Donbas”.
In this second phase of the war, artillery has become a crucial element in the fighting. Both sides have engaged in long-range artillery duels.
While the Russians lack the manpower to control vast areas of a very big country, they have huge artillery resources, and have been using their big guns to pound away at Ukrainian forces and urban areas.
A victory in Sievierodonetsk could clear the way for Russian forces to take control of Luhansk, one of the two provinces that make up Donbas. But the city is heavily defended, and will not be easy to occupy.
According to US think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, Russian troops have performed poorly in operations in built-up areas, and are unlikely to be able to advance rapidly in Sievierodonetsk itself.
Luhansk provincial governor Serhiy Haidai has said that Russia will not be able to take the city in the next few days as analysts predicted, but he admitted there was a possibility that “in order not to be surrounded, [the Ukrainian forces] will have to retreat”. Ukraine, meanwhile, has been deploying advanced artillery systems and other sophisticated armaments, thanks to the vital support of the US and other allies.
Ukraine previously relied on older Soviet-era artillery and while useful for imprecise area targeting, the latest Nato systems are more lethal and accurate, and would allow Ukraine to quickly determine the location of Russian artillery and target them with counter-battery fire.
The most lethal weapon so far supplied by the West to Ukraine went into action earlier this month — the American-made M777 howitzer.
Scores of these 155mm howitzers have been pledged by the US and other allies, and numbers have already been deployed in the east.
While the Russians have heavy, self-propelled artillery systems, enabling them to “shoot and scoot” avoiding counter-battery fire, the lightweight M777 is towed.
It is designed to provide direct support to combat troops with conventional and precision-guided projectiles.
Andrii Yermak, head of President Zelensky’s office, called on partners “to make decisions faster, not to waste time for which Ukraine pays with the lives of its people and destroyed cities”.
Despite the slow, bloody advances made by the Russians in Donbas, some military analysts ponder if the Russian forces in Ukraine will be able to maintain the momentum.
Since the invasion, Russian forces have been hit by heavy casualties, believed to be in the tens of thousands, and undermined by low morale, high equipment losses and weak logistics.
One analyst, Eliot Cohen, of the CSIS think tank in Washington DC, reflecting on Russian setbacks since the invasion has said: “I don’t see how the Russians can sustain this level of combat loss and defeat, for more than another couple of months.”
He considers the Ukrainians to be “tremendously self-confident”, and he points out that they have a much greater understanding of the Russians and their ways than almost anybody else has.
“They are the world’s experts at fighting Russians.”
Sean Boyne is a former correspondent for Janes Information Group open source intelligence company.
