But Moscow’s capture of the last major bastion of Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk province came at a price. The critical question now is whether Russia can muster enough strength for a new offensive to complete its takeover of Donbas and make gains elsewhere in Ukraine. “Yes, the Russians have taken over the Luhansk region, but at what cost?” asked Oleh Zhdanov, a military analyst in Ukraine, noting that some Russian units involved in the battle lost up to half their soldiers. Even President Vladimir Putin acknowledged on Monday that Russian troops taking part in the action in Luhansk need to “rest and strengthen their combat capabilities”. That raises doubts about whether Moscow’s forces and their separatist allies are ready to quickly push deeper into Donetsk, the other province that makes up Donbas. Observers estimated in recent weeks that Russia controlled about half of Donetsk, and the battle lines have changed little since then. What happens in Donbas could determine the course of the war. If Russia succeeds there, it could free up its forces to grab even more land and dictate the terms of any peace deal. If Ukraine, on the other hand, manages to pin down the Russians for a prolonged period, it could muster the resources for a counterattack. Attrition of the Russians had long been part of the plan for the Ukrainians, who began the conflict without firing a shot – but hoped that Western weapons could eventually tip the scales in their favor. They are already effectively using heavy howitzers and advanced missile systems sent by the US and other Western allies, and more are on the way. However, Ukrainian forces said they were still badly outgunned. Ukrainian Defense Minister Hanna Malyar recently stated that Russian forces are firing 10 times more ammunition than the Ukrainian military. After a failed blitzkrieg attempt on the capital of Kiev in the first weeks of the war, Russian forces withdrew from much of northern and central Ukraine and turned their attention to the Donbass, a mining and factory region backed by Moscow. The separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014. Since then, Russia has adopted a slow and steady approach that has allowed it to seize several remaining Ukrainian strongholds in Luhansk over the past few weeks. While Ukrainian officials have acknowledged that their troops have withdrawn from the city of Lysychansk, the last stronghold of their resistance, the presidential office said on Tuesday that the army was still defending small areas in Luhansk. Zhdanov, the analyst, predicted that the Russians would likely rely on their firepower superiority to “apply the same scorched-earth tactics and blow up entire cities” in Donetsk. On the same day that Russia claimed to have captured the last major city in Luhansk, fresh artillery attacks were reported in towns in Donetsk. But Russia’s approach is not without drawbacks. Moscow did not give a casualty figure after saying about 1,300 soldiers were killed in the first month of fighting, but Western officials said that was only a fraction of the actual casualties. Since then, Western observers have noted that the number of Russian troops involved in fighting in Ukraine has dwindled, reflecting both heavy attrition and the Kremlin’s failure to replenish the ranks. Limited manpower has forced Russian commanders to shy away from ambitious attempts to encircle large areas in the Donbass, opting for smaller maneuvers and relying on heavy artillery barrages to slowly force the Ukrainians to retreat. The military has also relied heavily on the separatists, who have staged several rounds of mobilization, and Western officials and analysts have said Moscow has increasingly engaged private military contractors. He also tried to encourage the Russian men who had been on their tour to re-enlist, although it is unclear how successful this was. While Putin has so far avoided declaring a widespread mobilization that could stoke social discontent, the newly proposed legislation suggests Moscow has been looking for other ways to replenish the ranks. The bill would allow young conscripts, who are conscripted into the army for a year and banned from combat, to immediately change their status and sign contracts to become fully professional soldiers. The draft was shelved amid strong criticism. Some Western officials and analysts have argued that the friction is so severe that it could force Moscow to suspend its offensive sometime later this summer, but the Pentagon has warned that even as Russia churns out troops and supplies at a rapid pace, still has abundant resources. US director of national intelligence Avril Haines said Putin appeared to accept the slow pace of the advance in Donbas and now hoped to win by crushing Ukraine’s more hardened forces. “We think that Russia believes that if they are able to really crush one of the most capable and well-equipped forces in eastern Ukraine … that will lead to a decline basically in the Ukrainian resistance and that that might give them more opportunities,” he said. Haines. If Russia wins in Donbass, it could count on seizing the southern Kherson region and part of neighboring Zaporizhia to try to eventually cut off Ukraine from the Black Sea coast to the Romanian border. If successful, it would deal a crushing blow to the Ukrainian economy and also create a corridor to Moldova’s separatist region of Transnistria, which is home to a Russian military base. But this is far from certain. Mykola Sunhurovsky of the Razumkov Center, a Kyiv-based think tank, predicted that increasing supplies of heavy Western weapons, including HIMARS multiple missile launchers, would help Ukraine turn the tide of war. “The arms supplies will allow Ukraine to launch a counteroffensive in the south and fight for Kherson and other cities,” Sunhurovsky said. But Ukraine has also faced massive personnel losses: up to 200 soldiers a day in recent weeks of fierce fighting in the east, officials said. “Overall, the local military balance in Donbas favors Russia, but the long-term trends still favor Ukraine,” wrote Michael Coffman, an expert on the Russian military and program director at the Virginia-based think tank CNA. “However, this estimate depends on continued Western military assistance and is not necessarily predictive of outcomes. This is likely to be a protracted war.”
Associated Press reporters Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Ukraine, and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
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