WSJ: Ukraine Enters New Round Of War
- 7.03.2024, 16:20
Its main feature is named.
Ukraine is entering a new phase of war with Russia, where the main thing is to dig. The Ukrainian forces, designed to perform combat missions, are forced to dig trenches in anticipation of a large-scale offensive, which the invaders may launch this spring.
At the moment, Russian troops are attacking Ukrainian forces at several points along the 600-mile front line as it seeks to capitalize on its recent capture of the eastern city of Avdiivka, its first major battlefield victory in months. Moscow knows Ukrainian units are short on fresh soldiers and ammunition, but Kyiv is "preparing": the lands west of Avdiivka are filled with excavators – the front is more like a construction site than a battlefield, emphasizes The Wall Street Journal.
The publication claims that Ukraine is trying to build fortifications similar to those that Russia built a year ago – the enemy's defence showed "deadly effectiveness" and deterred the offensive of Ukrainian troops last summer. Kyiv is facing the same task now. Troops are carving up the earth to create antitank ditches and trenches, especially in areas near Avdiivka.
The campaign began in November 2023 at the initiative of Zelensky. Even then, the President of Ukraine said that construction should be accelerated and called on private companies and international donors to get involved.
On all the main fronts, we need to dig in, speed up the pace of construction,” he said at the time. “The priority is obvious,” the WSJ quotes the President.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said this Monday that almost 31 billion hryvnia, or around $800 million, had been allocated for the construction of fortifications.
At the same time, Western officials and Ukrainian soldiers say that the “dig and swarm” strategy has not brought significant results. “The absence of progress is proving a liability for Ukraine as Russia steps up its assaults. In recent days it has pushed Ukrainian forces out of a string of villages west of Avdiivka, although hills and bodies of water a little further west can serve as natural obstacles for Kyiv that are easier to defend," the newspaper writes.
Franz-Stefan Gady, a Vienna-based defense analyst who recently toured front-line areas in the eastern Donbas region, gives an alarming prognosis:
"The lack of layered defenses along the front line should be of some concern for Ukraine. The situation will get quite critical for the Ukrainian forces."
At the same time, soldiers in the combat zone near Avdiivka admit that combat conditions leave them no other options. "In the circumstances we’re in, we have to dig, entrench and build by ourselves," said Maksym Zhorin, the Deputy Commander of the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade.
Thus, troops assigned to combat missions are forced to dig trenches, and often under fire. But the difficulty lies in the fact that there is little effort on the part of the personnel to build effective fortifications, the WSJ emphasizes.
Zhorin hopes the line of defense toward the city of Pokrovsk to the west is sufficiently developed to withstand an expected Russian assault in the coming weeks.
The WSJ recalls that last summer, when the Ukrainian Forces launched its large-scale offensive against Russia, the infantry and weapons quickly became bogged down in an elaborate network of obstacles Moscow had spent months preparing.
“Its main defensive belt had multilayered trench lines, antitank ditches, concrete blocks and extensive minefields that proved almost impossible to traverse. Building physical defenses is now vital for Ukraine," the WSJ writes.
Mobilization is also vital for the army - the involvement of "fresh" forces in battles. The publication calls Ukraine's policy on conscription quite "unusual", stressing that the state exempted from mobilization all those under the age of 27.
"Fathers of three or more children, carers for disabled people, and workers in critical sectors are exempt... In most countries, military service is more common for men or women starting around age 18,” the WSJ said.
Now Ukraine is taking the first steps to change something, but the necessary draft law on mobilization has not yet been adopted by the parliament. At the same time, the military command is conducting an audit of the brigades that were created under last year's counteroffensive, trying to find some auxiliary forces for the front, the article reads.
"Ukraine deploys almost three support troops for every combat troop, a high number that is a legacy of its Soviet military structure. Reallocating these soldiers could risk weakening the force,” they explain.
At the same time, the WSJ claims that the mentioned Ukrainian problems can be compensated by the shortcomings that the Russian army is known for on the battlefield.
"Although Moscow has a larger share of people and resources than Kyiv, it still relies on a lot of poorly trained soldiers. They are storming Ukrainian positions using tactics that, according to the Ukrainian military, cost Russia thousands of lives," the journalists remind.
Russia has already paid a huge price for the seizure of Avdiivka. According to one of Russian milbloggers, they lost about 16,000 "living" losses. It also lost more than 400 tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy armor in the battles for the city, according to the NATO official. The Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom this week gave a more rigorous analysis: an average of 983 soldiers a day had been killed or wounded in Ukraine during February. "The highest casualty rate since Moscow launched its large-scale invasion two years ago," the article reads.