By Dan Peleschuk
DONETSK REGION, Ukraine (Reuters) – For Ukrainian weapons commander Oleksandr Kozachenko, long-awaited U.S. ammunition cannot arrive fast enough as he and his comrades fight to contain relentless Russian attacks.
His unit’s U.S.-supplied M777 howitzer, which once fired 100 shells a day at the invading enemy, is now frequently reduced to fewer than 10.
“It’s a luxury that we can fire 30 shells.”
The United States says it is sending ammunition and weapons to Ukraine after Congress delayed approval of a $61 billion aid package last month. In early May, however, two artillery units visited by Reuters on the eastern front line said they were still awaiting a surge in deliveries and were operating at a fraction of the rate needed to contain the Russians.
Gunners from Kozachenko’s 148th Separate Artillery Brigade and the 43rd Artillery Brigade, both in the Donetsk region, said they were desperate for more 155mm shells for their Western guns, which gave them an advantage over Russia at the start of the war.
Resurgent Russian forces, which significantly outnumber and outgun Ukrainian defenders, have carried out several attacks across eastern Donbas in recent months and along the country’s northeastern border over the past week.
The initiative marked a turning point in the conflict sparked by Russia’s large-scale invasion more than two years ago.
Russia gained more territory in 2024 than it lost control during Ukraine’s much-hyped counteroffensive in the summer of 2023, according to Pasi Paroinen, an analyst at the Black Bird Group, a Finland-based volunteer group that analyzes images of satellite and social media content. of war.
Moscow’s forces have claimed 654 square kilometers since the start of this year, surpassing the 414 square kilometers lost to Ukraine between June 1 and October 1 last year, Paroinen said. Russia has gained 222 square kilometers of territory since May 2 alone, he added.
Russia’s Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment for this article, while Ukraine’s military did not immediately respond.
Colonel Pavlo Palisa, whose 93rd Mechanized Brigade is fighting near the strategic town of Chasiv Yar, said he believes Russia is preparing a major effort to break through Ukrainian lines in the east. This echoed the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, who said last week that he expected the war to enter a critical phase in the next two months, as Moscow tries to exploit persistent delays in arms supplies to Kiev.
“Without a doubt, this will be a difficult period for the armed forces,” Palisa said, adding that he believes the Kremlin wants to capture the entire industrial region of Donbas by the end of this year.
CITIES PREPARED FOR RUSSIAN ADVANCE
Russian forces are gradually making incursions that could threaten several major cities in the east, including Kostiantynivka, Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, which serve as key military centers for Kiev’s war effort.
Some gains are striking fear in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians living in these cities in the Donetsk region, as the enemy gets closer and closer.
“We only live for today,” said teacher Nina Shyshymarieva, 31, standing next to her daughter outside a church in Kostiantynivka as artillery thundered in the distance.
“We don’t know what will happen tomorrow.”
The Russian guns are now easily within range of Kostiantynivka; the closest Russian position in early 2024 was about 20 km away, according to open-source maps showing position changes along the front line. Now it’s 14 km.
Shyshymarieva and frontline fighters were among more than a dozen soldiers, commanders, residents and evacuation volunteers interviewed by Reuters in eastern Ukraine over the past two weeks. They painted a picture of profound uncertainty.
Much of the Donetsk region, which together with Luhansk makes up the greater Donbass area, is under daily shelling, typically targeted by Russian airstrikes or artillery at least a dozen times a day, according to regional governor Vadym Filashkin.
Ruins of houses, apartment blocks and administrative buildings are common sites in towns and cities.
Oleksandr Stasenko, a volunteer rescuer, said his team was receiving more requests to evacuate, particularly from Kostiantynivka and Kurakhove, another town further south, among other settlements.
Russian forces have also invaded Kurakhove, advancing 2 to 3 km along the road running east of the town so far this year.
“Wherever the front line approaches, people in those places try to leave as quickly as possible,” Stasenko said, adding that his group, East SOS, evacuates about two dozen a week, many of them elderly or infirm.
‘TIME IS NOT ON OUR SIDE’
Ukraine has around 1,000 km of front lines to defend in the east, north and south.
Some of the fiercest fighting in 2024 centered on Chasiv Yar, which dominates important high ground 12 km from Kostiantynivka. It is west of the devastated city of Bakhmut, which Moscow captured last year after months of costly fighting.
Russian advances near Chasiv Yar, and further south around the village of Ocheretyne, could create barriers in territory that Ukraine’s war planners rely on for logistics, analysts said, because they would expose key roads to Russian fire.
A major highway leading west from Kostiantynivka is already under threat. Cutting it off entirely would mean that transit centers further north, including Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, both with well over 100,000 people before the war, would lose a crucial supply line.
Russia’s new attack on the northeast region of Kharkiv, which began on Friday, also risks diverting Ukrainian forces from the eastern front, further compromising their ability to hold the line, said Emil Kastehelmi, another analyst at the Black Bird Group.
“At the moment, it appears that the aim of the (Kharkiv) operation is to cause confusion and tie the remaining Ukrainian reserves to areas of lesser importance,” he said.
Jack Watling, a senior researcher at the London-based think tank RUSI, said Russian forces would likely mount more attacks on the northern and southern points of the front line in order to expand Kiev’s defenses.
“Once Ukraine commits its reserves in these directions, the main effort will be to expand the Russian advance into Donbass,” he wrote in a May 14 commentary.
A new law reinforcing Kiev’s mobilization effort, which has been hampered by public skepticism, comes into force on May 18. Experts and commanders say it could take several months for new recruits to reach the front and reinforce exhausted troops.
Even if Ukrainian forces manage to hold out until all American ammunition and weapons reach the front, the challenge ahead remains daunting, according to many of the fighters.
“I would say that time is unlikely to be on our side, as a long war requires more resources,” said Palisa, the colonel of the 93rd Mechanized Brigade, speaking hours after Russia launched its ground incursion into Kharkiv.
He added that it would be essential to impose such a high cost on Russia as quickly as possible.
“The enemy’s resources, whether in terms of manpower or material, cannot be compared with ours. They are extraordinarily large. That is why a long war, I think, is not in our favor.”
(Additional reporting by Anastasiia Malenko and Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Pravin Char)
