There is a stillness in Orijiv that does not bode well. In a basement of this town on the Zaporizhia front in south-eastern Ukraine, soldiers from a platoon of the 65th Mechanized Infantry Brigade are impatiently waiting for the idleness in the Russian positions. The enemy is three kilometers away and there are traces of Russian artillery and cluster bombs everywhere. But in the last two weeks their guns and troops have drastically reduced their fire. “They are concentrating forces to launch an offensive, 100% sure,” says the platoon commander. It’s a matter of weeks, add his men and other units consulted by EL PAÍS in this battle line of the war.
There are times when intelligence reports written in Washington correspond to millimeters with the experiences of soldiers on the front lines, and that is exactly what is happening in Zaporizhia. While the leadership in Kyiv points to Bakhmut in Donetsk as the battle that will determine the fate of Ukraine, the Zaporozhye flank is weakened. And for many of these soldiers in the trenches, but also for NATO analysts, the future of the war will be decided here.
“Everyone’s looking for Bakhmut, but what’s happening here is more important,” says Stepan, an officer with the Artey Battalion of the Territorial Defense Forces, a volunteer branch of the army. Artey’s men are fighting on the toughest axis of the Zaporizhia front, between the municipalities of Orijiv and Huliaipole. Stepan — like most of the soldiers interviewed for this article he prefers not to give his last name — assures that two friends died in January and that ten of his colleagues fell injured. “President [Volodímir Zelenski] He visited Bakhmut in December and explained that the future of Ukraine is being defended there, so there is no turning back, but Zaporizhia is the way to Melitopol, it is the only way to cut the Russian land corridor between its border and Crimea.”
Zaporizhia is the only province where the Ukrainian army is stationed on the east bank of the Dnieper. From Zaporizhia, Ukrainian forces could advance without risking an almost miraculous operation for which they now lack the resources, namely an attempt to land further south on the Dnieper, from Kherson or Nova Kahovka. The straight line to Melitopol and the Sea of Azov goes from Zaporizhia.
In January, there were several warnings from senior White House officials, circulated through the media, that Bakhmut is worryingly depleting Ukraine’s military resources and that a withdrawal from this Donbass city could be a fair price if a counteroffensive is organized south, from Zaporizhia. “A major Ukrainian advance in Zaporizhia would seriously jeopardize the viability of the land bridge between Russia’s Rostov region and Crimea,” British Defense Ministry intelligence said on January 8.
Subscribe to EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
subscribe to
But the window of opportunity is closing, according to the military officials interviewed. Stepan believes that the Russian tanks are waiting to advance when temperatures start to drop again. Vasil, commander of a military police patrol in Orijiv, gives the enemy two weeks to launch their offensive. In early January there were limited Russian attacks which allowed them to gain some positions, although now Vasil states they mainly find reconnaissance posts to determine what forces the Ukrainians have.
Ukrainian armored infantry transport, Thursday near Huliaipole, on the Zaporizhia front Cristian Segura
The men of the 65th Motorized Brigade estimate that there are about 20,000 Russian soldiers on the other side of the front and about 18,000 on the Ukrainian side. It’s an optimal balance of power for defending because, according to the most basic military theory, an attack requires a strength greater than three to one. But Vasil confirms that they lost artillery pieces intended for Bakhmut. “If we took back Melitopol, we would win the war,” says this officer, “we respect our government, but most of all we trust Valeri Saluzhni [comandante en jefe de las Fuerzas Armadas Ucranias]He knows what to do.”
Only vehicles with soldiers circulate on the roads connecting the west with Orijiv and Huilapole. The movement of troops and weapons is incomparably less than in the Donetsk province in the direction of Bakhmut. Most of the transports are carried out at night, the sources consulted show, but in Bakhmut or on the Lugansk front, the movement of armored vehicles and self-propelled guns is uninterrupted even during the day. Up to three soldiers interviewed on the road between Pokrovske and Huliaipole confirm that they have just arrived in the region from Donbass in the troop rotation phase: they are posted to Zaporizhia to recover energy. “In Donetsk you hardly have a few free minutes a day, here it’s a different rhythm,” says Ivan, artilleryman with the Panzer Grenadiers. You can sleep in assigned shelters in the villages near the front lines, go shopping, and even cook something on an improvised grill in the courtyard of the house.
Siege of Donetsk
At a village store 10 kilometers from the front lines, three members of the Territorial Defense Forces’ 102nd Brigade carry a list of products to buy for their battalion. They have been on the Zaporizhzhia front since March and confirm that the increase in soldiers in their ranks is smaller because Bakhmut and Donetsk are priorities. “Russia has two inexhaustible resources, troops for slaughter and artillery,” says the commander. Men of the 102nd Brigade confirm that the invading army is concentrating men in Zaporizhia, but with the aim of opening a new flank to the south over Ukrainian positions in Donetsk province.
Pokrovske (in the Dnepropetrovsk province) is the junction of land and rail communications between the Zaporizhia Front and the Donetsk Front. Pokrovske is a municipality of 9,000 inhabitants that is completely occupied by the Ukrainian army. The movement there is hectic. Armored infantry transport columns can be seen during the day, especially Soviet BMPs; At night, the military stationed there, with whom this newspaper spoke, insist that the rhythm is faster. “Both we and the Russians are gathering forces for an attack,” says Stepan of the Artey Battalion, “but they are ready, the weather has failed them and we should take advantage of it.”
Stepan visits EL PAÍS at the table of a Pokrovkse gas station. Gas stations in war zones, one of the few functioning facilities, also serve as meeting places. Stepan repeats the same thesis as the soldiers of the 65th Mechanized Infantry Brigade and the 102nd Territorial Defense Brigade: This is not a good time for a tank offensive in Zaporizhia because the temperatures are unusually high – above 0 degrees – the terrain is a swamp and the tanks are moving up slowly forward. On the plains of Zaporizhia, tanks become easy targets. Best to spur the Russians on with rapid small unit operations with the faster, lighter armored infantry carriers. In this way, in September, it was possible to break through the Russian defenses in Kharkov. For this, according to the soldiers interviewed, the vehicles agreed with the NATO allies, the American Bradleys and Humvees, the German Marder or the French AMX-10, among other things, would already have to arrive. German Leopard tanks should arrive by the end of March at the latest.
A soldier of the Ukrainian special forces in the town of Novoselivka on the Zaporizhia front Cristian Segura
The infantry advance, say Stepan and the men of the 65th Brigade, must be accompanied by the harassment of Russian positions with precision artillery, a resource they do not have in sufficient quantity at Zaporizhia now because Donetsk and Lugansk have been prioritised. Soldiers from the 65th Brigade stress that to advance they will also need more anti-aircraft defenses, anti-drone weapons and anti-helicopter missile launchers. Tanks can be useful as artillery and, given their field experience, can be operational once the spring rainy season is over.
Wagner’s presence
“Do you know why I know this is going to be ugly? Because they sent me here,” says Vasil Tsirik, a soldier in the Kraken Regiment of the Ukrainian Special Forces. Tsirik stopped the EL PAÍS journalist on Wednesday in the village of Novoselivka, five kilometers from the Russian lines. The enemy had fired cluster bombs that morning at this town of about 500 people, which is now practically deserted. The soldier, a former Marine from Crimea, asked the journalist to stand where he had stepped, as there was usually explosives from unexploded cluster bombs. Tsirik stopped in front of Valentin Kezlivcha’s enclosure where this shepherd keeps his herd of goats. The soldier asked him if a bomb had hit his house. Yes, that’s how it was, and right after that he showed the damage. When asked if the goats weren’t grazing because there was still snow, the shepherd replied: “No, the goats aren’t grazing because this place is full of mines, the Russians were here in March.” Kezlivcha is not afraid, he added, being a veteran of the Soviet Army, he fought against the Israelis in Syria, although he does not remember in which war.
The Institute for the Study of War, a leading analysis center for military movements in Ukraine, reported on January 28 that it had discovered the transfer of Wagner’s Russian mercenary units from Bakhmut to Zaporizhia. Tsirik confirms it: “We were deployed here with the arrival of Wagner’s men because if they break into a sector of the front it means there will be an attack.” Wagner’s men are not the problem, he explains, because they serve as cannon fodder: they are neither properly trained, nor well equipped, nor do they pursue tactics beyond advancing, even if they drop like flies. The problem, Tsirik adds, is that behind them are the Russian special forces and airborne brigades. “And if they do take action, our positions will be in real jeopardy.”
Follow all international information on Facebook and Twitteror in our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits