When the first Russian tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border on February 24, Moscow assumed rapid success: the Russian troops should have conquered the capital Kyiv in a few days, and after the installation of a puppet government loyal to the Kremlin, the Resistance in the rest of the country is rapidly collapsing.
However, the planned rapid decapitation has turned into the largest military conflict on European soil since the end of the Second World War; Today, Friday, marks the 100th day since the beginning of the war, and there is not even a hint of an end in sight.
Rather, the conflict is likely to have reached its bloodiest phase to date. According to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, up to 100 Ukrainian soldiers die every day in the fighting in the east of the country. The heaviest fighting continues to be in the area around the two cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, separated only by a river, where 10,000 to 12,000 Ukrainian soldiers are threatened with encirclement. According to the British Ministry of Defence, which publishes an updated situation report every day, the slowly but steadily advancing Russian troops have now taken most of Severodonetsk, which was almost completely destroyed by artillery fire. However, the main road into the city is still said to be held by Ukraine, as is the bank on either side of the strategically important Seversky Donets River, which serves as a natural line of defense.
High blood toll on all sides
“The Russians have the initiative again, at least locally,” Colonel Markus Reisner, head of the development department at the Theresa Military Academy, told the Austria Press Agency APA. “Russia shoots down one after the other Ukrainian front lines ready to be stormed.”
Should the Russian military capture Severodonetsk and Lysyhansk, it would have complete control of the Luhansk region, which together with the Donetsk region forms the Donbass. The Russian President Vladimir Putin would have achieved an important goal. However, it is uncertain how long the Russians can maintain their offensive. Because, according to the situation report of the British Ministry of Defence, Russia also has to accept heavy losses in men and material in its advances on Severodonetsk and other strategically important points in the Luhansk Oblast.
Ukraine also seems willing to continue to wear down Russian troops despite the high losses it has suffered. There are several indications that the Ukrainian units in the most heavily contested areas are not being withdrawn, but are being reinforced. “Ukraine wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t in its strategic interest,” Phillips O’Brien, a military strategist who teaches in St. Andrews, Scotland, tweeted. “So Ukraine obviously assumes that the other side’s losses are even greater than its own and that it will be more difficult for Russia to replace those losses.”
So much will depend on how quickly and to what extent the promised Western arms deliveries arrive at the front in the East. In any case, the willingness to send modern heavy weapons seems to have increased again in many countries in the past few days. Slovakia announced on Thursday that it would deliver eight Zuzana 2 howitzers. Earlier, US President Joe Biden announced the delivery of the advanced M142 artillery missile system, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised Ukraine state-of-the-art air defense systems and a tracking radar to detect enemy artillery.(rs)