With President Biden in France rallying support for Ukraine’s war against Russia, ammunition and weapons from an aid package approved by Congress this spring are coming to the fore in sufficient numbers to help stabilize defenses, soldiers and commanders said in interviews.
But Russia still has an artillery advantage, which is key to the war in Ukraine.
Lt. Denys Yaroslavsky, the commander in northeastern Ukraine, where Russian troops stormed the border last month and threatened to advance on Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, said Thursday that Ukrainian artillery crews could now fire more frequently at Russian forces .
The Russian advance has largely stalled. But south of Kharkiv, in the Donbas region of Ukraine, Russia has renewed its offensive on Ukrainian lines.
Overall, the front line has not changed significantly in more than two weeks, despite the fierce and bloody fighting, according to soldiers at the front, military reports and satellite maps of the battlefield compiled by independent monitoring groups.
Here’s a look at the battle situation.
Kharkiv region
Russia struck across the border into northeastern Ukraine on May 10, raising fears that its forces could advance into Kharkiv, or at least within artillery range of the city. Bringing howitzer-like artillery pieces closer to Kharkiv will allow Russian forces to bombard the city more powerfully and effectively. Now, Russia has to rely on aerial bombs and longer-range missiles, which are more expensive than artillery shells.
But to get into artillery range, the Russian Army had to push back at least three weeks.
Russian forces advanced about six miles into Ukraine before stalling in the face of stronger Ukrainian positions, according to Ukrainian commanders. The commanders also said that more Ukrainian troops have arrived to break up the front line, and more American ammunition has arrived at the front line.
In the past week, the Ukrainian forces had enough ammunition to hold the Russians in their current position, Lieutenant Yaroslavsky said in an interview. “Our artillery struck a concentration” of Russian forces, he said.
The fiercest fighting took place in the streets of Vovchansk, a town about four miles south of the Russian border that is divided between two armies, according to the Kharkiv regional military administration. After four weeks of fighting, the city was deserted and largely destroyed.
However, Ukraine may be able to hold the positions held by its soldiers in the city, where they are fighting from basements and in the ruins of buildings, by disrupting Russian logistics close to an attack on Russia, Lieutenant Yaroslavsky said. In a policy change last week, the Biden administration, along with half a dozen other Western allies of Ukraine, authorized the attack to use weapons supplied to Ukrainian forces.
“Before, our artillery batteries were very careful with the number of shells they could use and would not try to shoot only a few Russian soldiers,” said Lieutenant Yaroslavsky. He said the artillery had changed tactics, and was now targeting attacks on Ukrainian lines by small Russian units.
Lieutenant Oleksandr Buktar of the Ukrainian National Guard, who fought near the village of Lyptsi, said on Wednesday around 7 a.m. he was awakened by a radio message: A unit of seven Russians had reached the Ukrainian trenches, and a gun battle was raging. In an interview, he described the war as public. “We have two or three infantry attacks a day,” he said.
Lieutenant Buktar said they responded with practiced procedures, highlighting the importance of artillery ammunition. He ordered drones to fly over the trenches, then ordered artillery to cross the area in front of the Ukrainian trenches, where the Russians were advancing. “We used everything we had,” he said of the artillery ammunition.
Donbas region
Russia’s strategy of opening a new front north of Kharkiv, according to Ukrainian and Western military analysts, is aimed at expanding Ukraine’s limited forces and undermining its defenses in the south, in the industrial and agricultural region of Donbas.
Russian forces have been advancing in the region in small and slow but bloody steps.
After capturing the Donbas town of Bakhmut a year ago, the Russians advanced about three miles through open fields until they reached the eastern edge of the town of Chasiv Yar, but then halted near an irrigation canal.
The defense of Chasiv Yar appears to be strategic, as the town is on high ground and its loss would open the door to further Russian advances into larger communities to the west and north. The last Russian ground movement into Chasiv Yar came last week, according to satellite maps of the battlefield.
The grounding is a sign, according to Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Institute for Foreign Policy Research’s Eurasia program, that Russian forces “are not pursuing a Kharkiv offensive, although they may ask Ukraine to move some troops from the Donbas.”
The southern Donbas has been the scene of the most intense fighting in recent weeks, according to satellite maps.
By capturing the town of Avdiivka in February, the Russians broke through the first line of defense, and began to advance, taking village after village. He had not yet reached the second line of Ukrainian defense, near the village of Karlivka.
Overnight Wednesday into Thursday, the Russian Army made another small advance in the direction near the village of Sokil, according to Ukrainian soldiers.
In that engagement, the Russians attacked the Ukrainian rear guard near Sokil in an armored personnel carrier. Troops in Ukraine’s 47th Brigade tried to counterattack with American-supplied Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, according to a sergeant in the brigade who asked to be identified by his call sign, Sapsan. But the Bradley guns failed, and the Russians dismounted and attacked the position.
This is an example, Sapsan said, of the Russian tactic of trying to attack to find weaknesses. Usually the attack is a “one-way ticket for the soldiers”, he said. However, he added, he was providing Russian intelligence to prepare for an attack by a larger force.
“They always do this, poking our positions, and are willing to destroy armored personnel carriers and personnel to do so,” he said, referring to the Russian losses. In contrast to the fighting in the northern part of Kharkiv, Sapsan said that in the Donbas campaign, Russia also carried out larger attacks, with a battalion strength of up to 500 people.
“The enemy has not stopped advancing and is constantly attacking our positions,” Colonel Nazar Voloshyn, a spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern military command, said in an interview.
Russia is now pushing towards two medium-sized cities, Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, and a highway between Pokrovsk and the town of Kostiantynivka that connects southern Donbas with cities in the north, he said.
Analysts say the arrival of Western aid has made it easier for Ukraine to defend its position but has not yet had a decisive impact. “Biden’s decision creates a major change not on the battlefield but among all the other countries that follow his example,” said Ben Barry, senior fellow for land warfare at the Institute for International Strategic Studies.
Mr Lee said Russia has significant manpower and firepower advantages and is likely to remain on the offensive for years to come. “But at some point,” he said, it could face a shortage of tanks and armored vehicles. “We have seen a lot of tanks and armored vehicles fighting on the Avdiivka front since October. And this level of losses may not last long.