Motorola’s all-new walkie-talkie excitedly lets out cavernous code words. Swift, the soldier with the silver beard, lifts his head and looks at the sky. drone alert. The Russian positions are half a kilometer from the sandy and narrow trench of the Lugansk Front, where the soldier is anchored with his partner, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan and keeper of a “very effective” Soviet-era machine gun, on a wooden parapet . Artillery shots ring out. With rhythm, but far away. Ukrainian troops are holding the front line in Donbass (in the east). After several intelligence operations, and relying on weapons supplied by Western allies and with increasing help from combat drones, Kyiv’s soldiers have managed to stem the bitter advance of Kremlin troops in this crucial area of the country.
More information
A little further up, to the north-east, the Kiev army, after a powerful counter-offensive, forced the Russians to withdraw from the Kharkov city belt; Positions that Vladimir Putin’s soldiers have used since the invasion began to subject Ukraine’s second-largest city to constant and devastating attacks. Moscow troops had to withdraw in some places almost to the Russian border, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said. But although President Volodimir Zelensky congratulated the soldiers on the achievement, the positions must be secured: the punished towns on the outskirts of Kharkov continued under the bombs this Monday.
Russia’s war against Ukraine, which has now been going on for three months, may have reached a turning point, the UK MoD and several military analysts believe. Russia – which, like Ukraine, does not disclose its losses – has also suffered huge losses in troops and materiel in this second phase of the offensive, for which the Kremlin army has already arrived reduced in size after the failed attack on the capital, Kyiv. This weekend, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared for the first time since the war began that Ukraine could win the war. The Ukrainian government speaks of a “turning point”.
After setbacks in its plan to sink Ukrainian forces in the Donbass in a major, multi-pronged operation, analysts believe the Kremlin has scaled back its ambitions and is now focusing on the ailing Lugansk province, already 90% occupied. As in the Northeast, the Russian army is trying to use its numerical superiority and use aircraft, tanks, heavy artillery and helicopters.
In the murky trenches and Ukrainian army outposts in the eastern city of Severodonetsk, besieged by Moscow forces, young commander Andrei Almas warns that the situation is extremely volatile. One moment there is something resembling silence, and the second artillery fire interrupts the chatter of groups of soldiers smoking on porches. In the neighboring village, the approximately 200-strong soldier says, another battalion is fighting the Russian troops street by street.
Subscribe to EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
Subscribe to
Last weekend, several attacks against Severodonetsk killed two people, hit a hospital – like the whole city is already practically empty – a chemical plant, a school and several houses, according to the authorities. The regional government now fears even more furious bombing raids around Lugansk, where Moscow has reinforced its troops from the Kharkov front.
A Ukrainian soldier in a trench on the Lugansk front, east of Severodonetsk, Monday María Sahuquillo
Russian soldiers and Vladimir Putin don’t distinguish between military and civilian positions, laments Yuriy Lelyavsky, spokesman for an airborne brigade guarding positions on the Donetsk frontline, very close to the hotter Izium area, where Russia has set up its military headquarters for the area and logistics center. “Putin says that they are coming to denazify Ukraine and he is the fascist,” notes the military man, who emphasizes the role of the weapons supplied by the western allies in dealing with the offensive, but on the other hand criticizes that he is used to buying gas pursued from Russia.
In this phase of the invasion, which is focused on the Donbass region and resembles more of a classic trench warfare, the fighting is essentially at a distance. And the big game is the artillery, says Leliavskii. “We have a saying: artillery means ‘god of war, the more the artilleryman sweats, the less the infantry bleeds.’ The artillery is everything here,” he says.
Russia’s war against Ukraine, which has shaken the world, will be decided in Donbass. And in the corridors of the European Council, the White House. On the Lugansk front, Commander Almas insists that the Kremlin’s goal now is to conduct smaller and less ambitious pincer operations to try to encircle the cities of Lisichansk and Severodonetsk, already without water, electricity, gas and power lines.
Last week, in a high-profile operation, Russia constructed several pontoon bridges across the Siversky-Donets River to encircle the Severodonetsk metropolitan area, the capital of Lugansk. He managed to get a few armored vehicles and several dozen soldiers down the catwalks before a battalion of Ukrainian special forces, recently deployed to reinforce the area, blew up the bridges, materiel and an entire Russian battalion. Now, according to a Ukrainian deputy commander who calls himself Viktor, a specialist in anti-tank weapons, several groups of Russian soldiers have been “infiltrated” in the area. However, the major Russian offensive in Siverski Donetsk failed, and that also feeds the Ukrainian soldiers in the Lugansk trenches.
Now, with the successful counter-offensive in Kharkov and resistance in Donbass, this turning point that the Ukrainian government is talking about could lead to further counter-offensives in the south and other parts of the east under Russian rule. However, the weapons of the western allies, still flowing down the streets and east and resting in some Donbass outposts, may not be limitless. “Every battle won is a small step towards victory,” says Yurii Leliavskii, while showing several European man-portable anti-aircraft weapons that are proving crucial in this part of the offensive: “Not just a Ukrainian victory, but a European one. We fight against the dark forces.”
Follow all international information on Facebook and Twitteror in our weekly newsletter.
Exclusive content for subscribers
read limitless