-Analysis-
In recent months, circumstances at the front have been favorable for the Russian army: the Armed Forces of Ukraine have experienced a shortage of ammunition and manpower. But while both problems are gradually being resolved, the Russians have not solved their problems on the battlefield.
For the latest news & views from every corner of the world, Worldcrunch Today is the only truly international newsletter. Sign up here.
In March, two sources close to Russia’s Ministry of Defense told Vazhnye Istorii that President Vladimir Putin had tasked the military leadership with reaching the administrative borders of the “DPR” (Donetsk People’s Republic) and “LPR” (Luhansk People’s Republic) by early summer in order to then force Ukraine and the West to negotiate.
That did not work. While in the Luhansk region Ukrainian forces control small areas along the western border of the region, in the Donetsk region it controls a significant territory, including the cities of Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Kostiantynivka and Pokrovsk. Sources told Vazhnye Istorii that it was Sergei Shoigu’s inability to solve the tasks that led to his resignation and purges in the Ministry of Defense.
Despite the Russian army’s failure to seize Donetsk and Luhansk, Putin is talking about negotiations more and more often, mentioning it four times since May 15: in an interview with China’s Xinhua news agency and during trips to China, Belarus and Uzbekistan. Last week, citing sources close to Putin, Reuters reported that he was ready to freeze the conflict along the existing front line.
A ceasefire and freezing the war would be a partial victory for Putin, said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps Reserves colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). In this case, he would keep about 20% of Ukraine under his control, avoid paying reparations and international prosecution for war crimes.
Even talk of a ceasefire could cause divisions among Ukraine’s allies, between those who insist on restoring the country’s borders before the annexation of Crimea and those who want an early ceasefire.
Russia needs a break
“It is important to realise that Russia does not need peace. It is not abandoning the original goals of the war. Russia needs a break,” said Russian military expert Pavel Luzin, noting that Russia tried to achieve a pause in the war in both 2022 and 2023. “The only thing is that time is running out now, and the Russian authorities have to hurry,” Luzin said.
Israeli military expert David Gendelman said it would be logical for the Russian army to try to seize as much territory as possible until the supply of American weapons and newly mobilized forces starts to improve the situation for Ukraine: “That is why now is a critical moment, perhaps not for the war as a whole, but for its current phase.”
Since the occupation of the Donetsk suburb of Avdiivka in February, Russian forces have been trying to advance in almost all directions. They have achieved relative success in three areas of the front.
Kharkiv targeted
The main event of the past month is a new offensive by the Russian army in Kharkiv region. On May 10, Russians crossed the border in two places: north and northeast of Kharkiv. Over a few days, they captured several border villages. But then the Ukrainian armed forces, which had transferred reserves, stopped the Russian advance.
Sources close to Russia’s defense ministry said the operation’s main goal is to divert the Ukrainian armed forces from other areas. That echoes what military experts said at the beginning of the offensive: Russia does not have enough forces to storm or encircle Kharkiv.
Ian Matveev, a military analyst for the Anti-Corruption Foundation, said that even though Ukraine transferred reserves to Kharkiv region, Russia could not take advantage of this. Matveev says the Russian army has scattered its forces, failed to achieve a single tactical success and suffered notable losses.
The American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote that on may 27 and 28, Russia conducted several attacks using small forces on different sectors of the front in Donetsk region and were not successful. The purpose of these attacks was likely to find weak points in Ukraine’s defense.
Shelling of the Belgorod region has not stopped since Kharkiv offensive began.
On the eighth day of the offensive, Putin said that his army did not plan to seize Kharkiv and that the goal of the operation was to create a “sanitary zone” to protect Belgorod from shelling. But even this goal cannot be considered achieved at the moment: the Russians have advanced deep into Ukraine in a limited area. For example, there is still about 30 kilometres from Belgorod to the Ukrainian border in the southwest.
Shelling of the Belgorod region has not stopped since the offensive began. To some extent, the situation has even worsened. Supporting ground troops, Russian aviation drops aerial bombs with a planning and correction module on Ukrainian positions. But when their wings do not open, they fall on the territory of Belgorod Oblast. In recent weeks, such incidents have occurred almost every day.
On May 28, three FAB-250 high-explosive bombs fell near the village of Bolshoye Gorodishche, while on May 27, one bomb was found in the villages of Pristen and Novenkoye. Perhaps it was a Russian aerial bomb that destroyed the entrance of a 10-story building in Belgorod and killed 17 people on May 12, according to the Conflict Intelligence Team, an independent investigative organisation originating from Russia. According to another version, the house was hit by a Russian air defense missile.
On the fronts of Avdiivka and Chasiv Yar
After capturing the Donetsk suburb of Avdiivka in February, the Russians continued their offensive west and northwest of the city. The biggest success was their advance near the village of Ocheretyne in mid-April. During the change of units in this area, one brigade left its position and the other did not arrive, according to the Ukrainian open-source intelligence project DeepState.
The Russian military used that to their advantage: they advanced several kilometres along the railway line and entered Ocheretyne almost with no resistance, and captured the village a few days later. At the end of April, analysts wrote that the Russian offensive near Ocheretyne could lead to the front’s collapse, an offensive on the city of Pokrovsk and the encirclement of Ukrainian units near the village of Berdychi, south of Ocheretyne.
Yet by the end of may that did not happen. The Russian army captured several villages to the south and northeast of Ocheretyne, advanced only a few kilometers from Ocheretyne deep into Ukrainian territory, and retreated from Berdychi.
The Russians are attacking in several other areas, but without any notable success.
Also in April, the Russian army approached Chasiv Yar, west of Bakhmut, and began to storm the city. By early May, Chasiv Yar was severely destroyed by artillery shelling and airstrikes. Judging by the videos published at the time, there are barely any buildings left intact in the city.
Ukrainian authorities and the military said that the Russian army was tasked with taking Chasiv Yar by May 9. By the end of the month it managed to enter only the Kanal neighbourhood, where fighting continues. In mid-May, Ukrainian intelligence published a video allegedly showing the destruction of 20 pieces of Russian military equipment near Chasiv Yar.
The Russians are attacking in several other areas of the front, but without any notable success. Nevertheless, Ukrainian armed forces had to transfer reserves to Kharkiv region from other directions, one of which could theoretically be vulnerable. In late May, Ukraine’s army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said that the situation was getting difficult in the Kupyansk district, where the Russians are trying to reach the Oskil River.
Russia in war footing
The duration of Russia’s offensive depends not only on its own resources, but also on how quickly Ukraine will solve its problems with ammunition and with the recruitment and training of new recruits.
The Russian army now has two main ways of recruiting: attracting contract soldiers “from the street” with large payments and forcing conscripts to sign a contract. At the end of March, British intelligence estimated the monthly influx of recruits at 30,000 people. But the situation may have worsened since then.
Indirectly this is evidenced by the constant increase in one-off regional payments when concluding a contract. A new record was recently set in Krasnodar, where, taking into account the city surcharge, the payment rose to almost 1.65 million roubles (about ,500).
Military expert Luzin said that rate of Russian recruitment has been lower than the rate of losses over the past few months. Meanwhile, recruits are from “the socio-cultural bottom,” including school dropouts, alcoholics, drug addicts and those under investigation. “The army has severely degraded professionally, socially and logistically. Furthermore, the army is degrading organisationally, losing junior commanders,” Luzin said.
Judging by the course of hostilities, the Russian army is not critically short of weapons and ammunition.
From a military point of view, the Russian army already needs mobilization to recruit approximately 300,000 people, as in the autumn of 2022, analyst Gendelman said. But the issue is a political one. Mobilisation can be postponed for now, but it could be announced at the end of the year if Ukraine does not negotiate and the West continues to provide it with military support. “If [the Russians] decide that something has not worked out and the war is moving into a new phase, then they can announce another mobilization,” Gendelman said.
Cancian said he believes Russia is ready to fight for years as the army recruits enough contract soldiers and the country’s industry has shifted to a war footing. Political upheavals within the country could change the situation, but such a scenario is unlikely.
Judging by the course of hostilities, the Russian army is not critically short of weapons and ammunition. For example, Russia produces shells three times faster than Ukraine’s Western allies, and they cost four times less, Sky News reported on May 28. According to Ukrainian military estimates, Russia also has enough long-range missiles, producing about 100 per month.
In the short term, Russia’s defense industry is managing to cope with the impact of Western sanctions, said John Kennedy, an expert at the RAND think tank, who believes the appointment of Andrey Belousov as defense minister indicates that military production is becoming a priority. If the war continues, potential problems may be a shortage of workers, limited access to Western technology and the “primitivisation” of the military-industrial complex infrastructure.
Ukraine’s strategic defense
For Ukraine, the shortage of soldiers at the front should be resolved by the law on mobilization, which lowered the minimum age of conscription from 27 to 25, and which came into force on May 16. Recruiting and training new recruits could take several weeks, possibly two months, Gendelman said.
Ukraine’s ammunition shortage was primarily due to the political situation in the United States. After six months, the House of Representatives of Congress finally approved the allocation of .8 billion for military supplies to Ukraine on April 23.
Yet supplying ammunition to the warring units takes time; the Biden administration reported the arrival of the first shipments of weapons to the front on May 11. Western intelligence agencies have called the situation a “window of opportunity” for the Russian army.
This year, Ukraine’s task is strategic defense — and success is not guaranteed.
The supply of ammunition to the front lines should also improve thanks to the shells supplied within the framework of the “Czech initiative.” European countries are buying artillery shells from third countries for Ukrainian forces, and the first tens of thousands of ammunition should arrive in June. In total, the initiative is expected to supply up to 1.5 million shells.
“It is difficult to expect that the situation will improve for Ukraine to such an extent that there will be a radical change in the war. Perhaps the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be able to stabilize the front and stop further Russian advance,” Gendelman said. He believes that it is too early for the Ukrainians to think about a counter offensive. This year, their task is strategic defense — and success is not guaranteed.
Ukraine’s forces have already strengthened their resistance, and in a month we can expect localised counterattacks by the Ukrainian army, Cancian said. At the same time, the scale of Russian offensive operations is likely to decrease.
Negotiation attempts
Switzerland will host a peace conference on Ukraine on June 15-16. Swiss authorities say that representatives of more than 70 states have agreed to participate, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky puts the figure at around 90.
Russia was not invited to the conference, but the goal is to come up with a roadmap for its participation in the peace process. On May 27, Bloomberg reported that the summit could be followed by talks in Saudi Arabia in September, where European officials want to invite Russia.
In April, Zelensky said that the discussions in Switzerland would be based on his “peace formula,” which includes the withdrawal of Russian troops and the restoration of Ukraine’s borders as of 1991. In late May, Zelensky said that three points would be brought up at the summit: nuclear energy security; food security; and the exchange of prisoners with an “all for all” format and the return of children taken from Ukraine.
Russia has repeatedly said that even if it were invited to Switzerland, it would not come. Putin endorses the Chinese conflict resolution plan, which says nothing about the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. In addition, a week ago in Minsk, Putin said that he was ready to return to the agreements reached in the spring of 2022 in Turkey and Belarus, but based on the current realities at the front.
At the beginning of the war, there were several rounds of negotiations between representatives of Russia and Ukraine, but in May 2022 they came to naught. Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko wrote in the American magazine Foreign Affairs that the communiqué agreed at the time envisaged a neutral and non-nuclear status for Ukraine.
It also obliged Ukraine to renounce any intention to join military alliances or allow foreign military bases or troops on its soil. The document did not mention the “DPR” and “LPR” occupied territories, and the parties were to resolve the issue of Crimea peacefully within the next 10-15 years.
