Ukraine: the battle for Donbass

By Richard North - May 25, 2022

If we were all caught up in a life-and-death struggle, with the Russians shelling our cities, you might imagine that we would be entirely unconcerned about Johnson’s shenanigans in No.10 during the lockdown.

But it has to be said that, even during their height of the Blitz, there was much media concern about the inequality of rationing, war profiteering and class discrimination in the provision of air raid shelters. People are capable of being concerned about different things at the same time, and can generally accept that not all their concerns are of the same degree of importance.

As a UK citizen, therefore, it is possible – and perfectly legitimate – to be concerned both about the fate of the Ukrainians and the behaviour of prime minister Johnson, and to have an opinion on both these issues and many others.

Nevertheless, at this particular juncture when the battle for Donbass seems to be coming stepping up a notch, partygate is a distraction that we could do without. The media need little enough excuse to sideline the issue and, with the Sue Gray report imminent, Ukraine is going to be struggling to get the attention it deserves.

For the moment, though, the some of the media seem to have woken up to the situation, which has been festering for some days now, with the Telegraph reporting that the Russians are on the cusp of capturing Sievierodonetsk.

This, plus the twin city of Lysychansk – the pair straddling the Siverskyi Donets River – are the last heavily populated, Ukrainian-held areas of the Luhansk Oblast. Their capture would represent a significant and unmistakable victory for Putin, who has made the occupation of both administrative areas of Donbass one of his main objectives.

In terms of strategy, this assault represents a sea change in the Russian approach. Having withdrawn troops from the Kiev, Chernihiv and Sumy Oblasts, and pulled back from Kharkiv, the Russians are now concentrating their resources on limited, achievable objectives, freed from any fixed schedules.

And, by adopting a cautious, incremental approach, working from internal lines of communication, the Russians are minimising the risks to their supply lines, which enables them to keep up sustained pressure on the Ukrainian armed forces who are now in danger of being encircled.

The Ukranian authorities are, at the moment, bullish, claiming that Sievierodonetsk is firmly under their control and the armed forces are holding the line.

However, as we reported on Monday, the Russians are working on severing road communications to the cities. Thus, the Ukrainians have abandoned the towns of Myronivsky and Svitlodarsk, retreating to more defensible positions.

The Russians have taken the city of Svitlodarsk in the Donetsk region, an industrial centre that is home to the Vuhlehirska thermal power plant. The strategic position of this city, dominating the southern end of the M03, makes the defence of Sievierodonetsk that much more difficult. Next is Bakhmut, and when that goes, which it is expected to within the week, and Lyman is finally subdued, the city will be almost completely cut off.

Having decided to quit Svitlodarsk to avoid encirclement, the Ukrainians will soon have to decide whether the twin cities should also be abandoned.

Reuters, without any specific intelligence to call upon, states that Russian forces are seeking to encircle the cities, even though in recent battles they have made no attempts to block the escape of Ukrainian troops wishing to disengage.

As it stands, there are hints that there is no appetite for another Mariupol-style defence, and Izvestia continues to probe Ukrainian military capabilities. If a decision to withdraw is to be made, it will have to be in the next day or so, or the Ukrainians could face the embarrassment of another mass surrender.

So far, the Ukrainians have been reinforcing their positions and claim to have slowed the Russians down. But they are unable to stop the meat grinder and, according to the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen, they have been taking heavy casualties – despite optimistic noises from the Ukrainian defence ministry.

Bowen was told that the 57th Brigade sent one of its units into the line with 240 men and came out with about 140 – the rest of them killed, wounded or captured. Even Zelensky is admitting to losses of 100 Ukrainian soldiers a day in Donbass.

On the other hand, interior affairs minister, Viktor Andrusiv, claims that the Ukrainian armed forces are implementing flexible defence. This, he says, means inflicting the greatest damage on the enemy with the maximum possible preservation of their own forces.

Inevitably, this sometimes requires retreat from frontiers that are not strategic in nature in order to avoid encirclement or significant losses. There is no betrayal in this, he adds. On this, he is backed up by Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk regional military administration.

“This is not a retreat [of the Armed Forces of Ukraine]”, he says, “but a regrouping. This is the right and logical decision in this situation to save the lives of [the military] and regroup”. However, since the twin cities have been on the front line since 2014, it will be difficult to concede the territory after holding it for so long.

Once the whole of Donbass is in Russian hands, though, the Ukrainian problems are just starting. Zelensky has just re-affirmed that Ukraine will not resume peace talks until Russian troops have withdrawn to pre-24 February positions.

By the time with current round of fighting is over, the Ukrainians will have conceded the larger part of Donbass, leaving the Ukrainian armed forces the unenviable task of recovering the territory ceded since 24 February, before talks can re-commence.

If the Russians follow the same process they are developing in Kherson and elsewhere, as soon as they have reached their finish lines in Donbass and established defensible positions, they will be building reinforced concrete bunkers and other fortifications.

History tells us that fortified defence lines rarely withstand a determined assault – as indeed the Russian attacks on the current Ukrainian defences are showing. But, in the difficult terrain of Donbass, a counter-offensive against Russians embedded in fortified defences, under cover of fixed anti-aircraft missile systems, could be very costly, and slow.

Despite that, the Kyiv Independent, responding to the New York Times, believes the war to be winnable. While some continue to think that the Russian military is unbeatable, it says, the reality is that Russian corruption, theft, mismanagement, and lack of transparency led to the country’s military being poorly trained and equipped.

Highly-motivated soldiers could have offset these problems. But Russia has no viable justification for the war it could feed its demoralised soldiers, who are often used as cannon fodder.

Therefore, the paper argues, the Russian military is weak, its command structure is abysmal and it can very well lose the war to the smaller but much more motivated Ukrainian forces willing to defend their homes, families, and country until the last breath.

The trouble is, defence is one thing. Offence, against a well-prepared and emplaced enemy, is quite another. And whether such an endeavour would continue to attract Western support is another matter.