Ukrainian troopers spent hours ducking in trenches as artillery exploded round them, then dashed for the security of an armored personnel service — solely to be chased by the open rear ramp of the car by an exploding drone.
“All I might see have been sparks in my eyes,” mentioned one of many troopers, a sergeant, recounting how the pursuing drone blew up, leaving him and his group wounded however one way or the other nonetheless alive. He requested to be recognized solely by his first identify, Oleksandr, in accordance with army protocol.
Preventing on the plain in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia area, the place Oleksandr’s car was hit earlier this 12 months, has raged for 10 months now in two phases: first with Ukrainian forces on the offense, and now on protection, as Russia escalates assaults on the world the place Ukraine gained floor in final summer time’s counteroffensive.
Navy analysts have described Ukraine’s technique as “maintain, construct and strike” — holding the road within the nation’s southeast, replenishing its models with recent troops and hitting again with long-range drones assaults on oil refineries and army logistics targets inside Russia.
In Zaporizhzhia, this has meant defending an space created by final summer time’s counteroffensive, a 10-mile-deep semicircle that presses into Russian-held territory, forming a bulge. Troopers describe ruined villages, trenches and fields which might be a moonscape of shell craters.
On the southern tip of the semicircle lies the village of Robotyne. Ukraine recaptured it final summer time, within the high-water mark of a counteroffensive that not solely failed to realize a breakthrough, however left the Russians in a powerful sufficient place to start out pushing again throughout the southern entrance.
Ukrainian forces occupying that bulge within the entrance line could be attacked from three sides, making a dilemma: Abandoning that pocket would ease the stress on them, however it will additionally sign a symbolic setback within the battle, dropping territory they gained final 12 months at a excessive price in casualties and destroyed weaponry.
Interviewed final week, troopers who lately fought there described small sways within the entrance in each instructions, and being badly outgunned by Russian artillery. General alongside the frontline, Russia is firing seven instances as many artillery shells as Ukraine, Basic Ivan Havryliuk, a deputy minister of protection, informed Ukrainian media on Monday.
American weaponry that had been donated for the counteroffensive final 12 months, together with Stryker armored autos, has proved helpful in defending troopers from these barrages now as they combat defensively.
However U.S. politics now threaten the provision of arms. A bundle price about $60 billion in army and monetary help has been stalled in Congress for months over objections from some Republicans. The Biden administration final week introduced it will ship $300 million in stopgap army help utilizing funds remaining from beforehand authorized help.
Russian forces attacked the pocket round Robotyne and areas close by 9 instances over the previous day, the final workers headquarters mentioned on Tuesday. When the Ukrainians captured the village final 12 months, they pierced a most important Russian anti-tank defensive position; now the Russians try to push them again and fill in that hole.
Like Bakhmut and Avdiivka, Robotyne, which had a prewar inhabitants of about 500 folks, is now simply ruins. All through the battle, American officers have repeatedly raised issues that Ukraine was holding out too lengthy in defending such locations, committing troopers and ammunition to cling to devastated cities with little strategic worth.
However for Ukraine, the world round Robotyne stays price preventing for, at the least for now.
“Sooner or later, symbolic turns into strategic,” Yurii Sak, a former adviser to the minister of protection, mentioned of the preventing. Defending the positive factors of the offensive, he mentioned, is “vital for morale, it’s vital for the assist of the inhabitants, it’s vital for the interior perception in our potential to win.”
The fight can be extra expensive in casualties for the attacking Russians than the Ukrainians of their defensive positions, Mr. Sak mentioned. “So long as that calculus continues, it helps holding the bottom,” he mentioned. “It’s battle, so casualties are inevitable on either side.”
Russia is now on the offensive alongside your entire frontline, which stretches in a 600-mile-long crescent from the Russian border in northeastern Ukraine to the southern Dnipro River. The Kremlin’s army has been utilizing its benefit in ammunition, manpower and aviation.
Russia has swelled the ranks of its military by deploying squads of former convicts. It’s shopping for artillery shells, missiles and exploding drones from North Korea and Iran to assist replenish its provides. Its planes keep away from Ukrainian air defenses by dropping bombs from a protected distance that glide to their targets.
Simply this 12 months, Russia has dropped greater than 3,500 glide bombs, Ukraine’s army mentioned. Moscow’s digital warfare devices jam indicators and scramble coordinates for Ukraine’s satellite-guided weapons.
The end result has been a grinding advance that in February pushed Ukraine out of the small metropolis of Avdiivka within the Donbas area of jap Ukraine. Since then, Russia has been attacking with a mixture of floor assaults and aerial bombing at seven factors alongside the entrance, in accordance with Ukraine’s common workers headquarters.
Within the northeast, Russian forces are pushing by pine forests towards town of Kupiansk on the Oskil River, searching for to reverse positive factors Ukraine made in a counteroffensive within the fall of 2022.
Within the Donbas, a area of rolling hills dotted with coal mines and factories, Russia has been urgent alongside 4 strains of assault, searching for to use openings created by capturing Avdiivka. Ukrainian forces say they’re holding defensive positions to the west of town, although Russia has captured a number of small villages because it tries to advance.
Close to the southern metropolis of Kherson, Russia has been assaulting a Ukrainian outpost throughout the Dnipro River, on the jap financial institution, in an space in any other case managed by Russia. Russian forces assaulted the place 3 times on Monday, the Ukrainian army mentioned.
The place there may be resupplied by boat and, just like the bulge within the strains round Robotyne, it’s precarious.
These fights are worthwhile, Ukrainian officers have mentioned, as a result of they price Russia tens of hundreds of troopers killed and wounded, however there may be skepticism in Washington.
“I perceive the administration has been pissed off,” Evelyn Farkas, director of the McCain Institute, mentioned, referring to the Biden administration.
“It’s unclear whether or not army selections are purely army or influenced by political stress and even course,” she mentioned.
On the coaching for Ukrainian troops preventing within the semicircular space close to Robotyne, troopers famous one benefit to the shift to a defensive technique: fewer casualties. Russians now should go away their trenches to assault, whereas the Ukrainians are preventing from the duvet of their positions.
Pulling again, mentioned a non-public, additionally named Oleksandr, would merely go away Ukrainian troops preventing in different positions in related situations. “You must defend each meter,” he mentioned.
Nonetheless, it’s a fierce combat within the south, over a panorama of open fields, muddy roads, ruins of farmhouses and numerous blown-up autos, going through Russian forces on three sides.
Ukrainians have been preventing within the space lengthy sufficient to offer the positions they’re defending nicknames like The Wheel, Silicon and Tank Trench.
Russian reconnaissance drones regularly fly overhead, directing artillery or mortar hearth on the troopers. Aerial bombardments are frequent.
Small drones rigged with explosives and cameras buzz in commonly, chasing vehicles and generally folks. The one which flew into Sergeant Oleksandr’s armored personnel service in January wounded everybody inside, however all survived. Final week, he was coaching to return to the preventing in the identical space.