Ukraine may find it harder to hold Russian forces back there
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskThe clashes that intensified on April 18th are “preludes to larger offensive operations”, according to American defence officials. They are probably a mixture of Russian reconnaissance, to establish the strength of Ukrainian defences, and shelling, to soften them up in advance of ground attacks that will follow.
Notably, instead of amassing a large force and then striking, Russia has chosen to initiate the battle for Donbas even while it is still scraping together extra troops and equipment. Some American and European officials think that this curious decision may be guided by an arbitrary constraint: Mr Putin’s reported desire to see results by May 9th, Victory Day, on which Russia marks the end of the second world war in Europe.
Ukrainian troops look vulnerable in a salient around Severodonetsk, a city about 80km from Luhansk, which is now under pressure from three sides. Russian forces have taken Kreminna, a small town to its north-west. Battles were also raging in Zaporizhia province, an industrial region immediately to the west of Donbas and to the north of Crimea.
A Ukrainian counter-attack could threaten the highway between Kharkiv and Izyum, potentially cutting Russia’s supply lines. “If Ukraine can obtain some level of firepower control over the roads, it would disrupt the operation and tie down significant Russian forces,” says Mykola Bielieskov of the National Institute for Strategic Studies, a Ukrainian think-tank.
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