It has been a good three weeks for President Putin in Ukraine. A lot has been happening on the ground while the eyes of the world have been directed elsewhere. These are tough weeks for Kyiv. They are, as Macer Gifford, one ex-British soldier fighting for Ukraine, put it on social media on Friday, “dark and difficult times”.
In response to Kyiv’s summer offensive, Putin ordered Russian forces more than a month ago to launch local counterattacks at multiple points along the 1,000km front. The Kremlin hoped to wrest back the initiative before winter sets in.
With American weapons and western attention suddenly swinging towards the Middle East, Russia has poured more men and equipment into some ferocious assaults in northeast Donbas, towards Kupiansk; in southeast Donbas, at Avdiivka; and in Zaporizhzhia, north of Tokmak, to halt Ukrainian progress southwards.
What’s more, last week Moscow seemed to be digging into the stockpile of missiles it has been conserving. It looks as if Russia’s winter air offensive is under way, targeting civilian infrastructure for the second year running.
The new Bakhmut
Russia’s renewed attack at Avdiivka, which began on the weekend of October 7, is particularly significant. The Russians have diverted scarce resources to try, yet again, to surround the city, bringing in about six brigades and a great deal of air power and artillery from other units, bombarding the two Ukrainian brigades holding the city. So far, Ukrainian forces have defended the town fiercely and the Russians have not completed an encirclement — though they will keep trying.
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Avdiivka is becoming another Bakhmut. Except that Bakhmut had no real strategic importance. It was a symbol the Wagner mercenaries wanted to create for themselves. But Avdiivka does have genuine strategic value: it is on a key route into the city of Donetsk, as close to the airport as it is to the northern suburbs of the city.
The road system makes Avdiivka the gateway to southern Donbas. The Ukrainians have held it against Russian pressure since last year. It is Kyiv’s route to victory in that sector. If they lose Avdiivka now, they will be locked out of the south, and most of what they have achieved in the Donbas further north will count for little. Ukraine’s 1st Tank Brigade has been brought in to defend Avdiivka, while parts of the hard-fighting 47th Mechanised Brigade have been pulled out of the main southerly thrust from Zaporizhzhia and sent east to help defend the city. Fierce battles have been going on for control of the coke and chemicals plant on Avdiivka’s northern flank and the sand quarry at the village of Opytne on the southern flank. These two miserable industrial sites really matter.
Risk of stalemate
No wonder Kyiv appears to be deeply worried. According to rumours among security sources in Ukraine, the military commander Valery Zaluzhny argues that the Ukrainian offensive is almost over, that they must hold what they have got and prepare for operations next year. But President Zelensky does not agree, or will not admit it, because of the perception in the West that his war for Ukraine’s survival seems to have reached a stalemate. He knows that western patience is limited for his maximalist demands that Ukraine must recover all territory invaded by Russia since 2014, and Kyiv is deeply frustrated not to show more progress in its much-vaunted summer offensive. Kyiv well understands the political impact in the West of any appearance of stalemate. In truth, the events of the summer are both better and worse than that, but Ukrainian leaders are far from certain that western politicians or their public will grasp that.
Ukraine’s situation is better than stalemate because they are inflicting heavy losses on Russian forces in their recent attacks. In ten days from October 10, Russia’s visually verified vehicle losses in Avdiivka were 109 — comprising tanks, fighting vehicles and support units, more than a full brigade’s worth. In the past week its losses have not diminished, and Russian personnel losses are running at several hundred a day. The Russians are still operating human-wave attacks with their convicts or inexperienced troops.
Ukraine is also inflicting heavy losses south of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region, where Ukraine has been trying to break through to Tokmak and open the route to the coast, splitting Russian forces in two. That now looks unlikely, but the Russians have used up their reserves in holding on north of Tokmak. They are certainly stretched and Kyiv may still be hoping that Russian defences will prove brittle in the rear areas if only they can break through more of the forward defence lines. Ukraine has also been very successful in degrading Russian forces in the rear areas with its western-supplied “deep-strike” precision missiles and artillery. They have created conditions that will make it difficult for Russian forces to settle safely into winter quarters.
Crimea under threat
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The Ukrainians will certainly keep fighting, particularly when the wet weather gives way to freezing ground and heavy vehicles can disperse off the roads again. If Kyiv can cope with current Russian pressure in the Donbas, then the immediate strategic prize — not far away now — is to get within easy missile and artillery range of Crimea. This would make it too dangerous for the Russians to use Crimea as a military hub, feeding troops and airpower into the battlefields of Ukraine. It would make it an unenviable home for the 800,000 Russians who have moved in since 2014, and it would be a major setback for Putin to see the pride and joy of his “Novorossiya” under such threat. With only two slender land routes connecting Crimea to the rest of Ukraine and one vulnerable bridge over the Kerch Strait linking it to Russia, Crimea is inherently vulnerable if the Ukrainians get much closer to it.
For their part, Russian forces have certainly learnt some lessons at a tactical level after 20 months of war. They combine their forces better than they did; they use air power much more efficiently and they protect their logistics more carefully. But at the operational level, Russian high command still throws one unit after another into the front line. It has no operational reserve and keeps piling barely trained, badly equipped troops into the boots of the dead in the belief that enough of the survivors will eventually break through.
In response to its losses, the Kremlin is making major efforts to get Russia’s ethnic minorities into uniform and has geared up for a full war economy. But that economy is stalling. After a production spike until the second quarter of 2023, its armaments industries have reached a plateau, short of components, workers and skills. Even the biggest producers, such as the UralVagonZavod tank factory, the United Aircraft Corporation and the United Engine Corporation, are rumoured to be operating at about 70 per cent of their March 2023 capacity. They struggle to maintain a three-shift production cycle. The fact is, Russia is probably unable to mount another full strategic offensive in Ukraine until spring 2025 at the earliest — unless Kyiv folds before then, or Ukraine’s western allies effectively withdraw their material support.
War of attrition: the toughest test
That also makes the current situation worse than a stalemate for the Ukrainians: this is now a war of attrition, of the sort western powers have not seen since the world wars of the last century. Wars of attrition are ultimately won by the side that can best gear up its industries and apply its productive capacity directly to the battlefield — from high-tech cyber systems down to bullets, boots and “meals ready to eat”.
The Russians can — eventually — do this for themselves. The Ukrainians can do some of this for themselves and are gearing up for a high-production arms industry in the future. But they can only match Russia in any real war of attrition with western support, particularly next year when Russia will be heavily dependent on what it can squeeze from North Korea, Iran and China.
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Western leaders naturally recoil from the idea that the struggle between crude Russian imperialism and liberal democracy can be won only in an attritional way. They want to see Ukrainian forces achieve the sort of battlefield victories western forces enjoyed at times over the past 70 years, such as in the Falklands or the first Gulf War in 1991. But this summer indicates that it is unlikely to go that way. Kyiv is fearful that what happens at a coke and chemical plant or a sand quarry near Avdiivka may convince western observers, when they glance back from the Middle East, that an attritional war has begun. They fear that the West’s nerve will fail and 2024 will become Ukraine’s toughest test yet.
Michael Clarke is visiting professor in defence studies at King’s College London and distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute
