KYIV, Ukraine — Moscow has massed hundreds of thousands of troops in Ukraine and is targeting dozens of locations every day in a series of markedly enhanced artillery attacks. Ukrainian forces are struggling to hold their ground on a 140-mile stretch to the east, waiting for tanks, armored vehicles and other weapons systems from the West.
Ukrainian officials have been preparing for weeks for a new Russian attack that could rival the opening of the war. Now, they are warning that the campaign is underway, with the Kremlin looking to reshape the battlefield and embrace momentum.
“I think it has already begun,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said this week.
Along the undulating front lines in eastern Ukraine, artillery never remained silent for long. The roads in Ukrainian-controlled areas are mostly empty, except for tanks, armored personnel carriers and giant trucks loaded with ammunition crates. A few gas stations were still in operation, packed with soldiers sipping hot coffee before returning to battle.
Hospitals near the front lines are busy, but not overcrowded. At a large emergency hospital, there is a long period of silence and then, suddenly, a convoy of ambulances arrives, filling the corridors with wounded soldiers in various stages of consciousness.
Fierce combat is concentrate around the desolate eastern city of Bakhmut, where Russian forces were closing in on key supply lines. Before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly a year ago, Bakhmut had a population of about 70,000. But most of those living in the devastated city have long since fled, and on Tuesday night, mayor Oleksiy Reva begged some 6,500 people to stay and evacuate.
“The city is under constant hostile fire,” he said in a statement. “The enemy spares no one! How much danger will you ignore?!”
Ukraine and Russia have been at war for almost a year. Since the fall, as Ukraine regained territory through counterattacks in the northeast and south, the fighting in the east has turned into muddy and frozen trenches, each army facing its own. substantial losses while reaping only negligible benefits.
Both sides are poised for more intense ground combat, with Moscow insisting on capturing the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine and Kyiv with the aim of driving Russian troops out of the country altogether.
Russia’s approach changed last month after the Kremlin named General Valery V. Gerasimov to take over its struggling war effort. Since then, Moscow has steadily replenished its forces in the Donbas, seeking to do with overwhelming manpower what it has so far failed to do with firepower: break through the fortified lines in Nine years, since Russia first incited the uprising in eastern Ukraine. .
Ukrainian intelligence estimates that Russia now has more than 320,000 troops in the country — nearly twice the size of Moscow’s original invasion force. Western officials and military analysts have said that Moscow also has 150,000 to 250,000 troops in reserve, trained or deployed inside Russia to join combat at any time.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters at a press conference: “We see that they are preparing for more wars, that they are mobilizing more troops, more than 200,000 people and maybe even more. more than that”. visit Korea in Monday. “They are actively buying new weapons, more ammunition, increasing their own production, but also buying more weapons from other authoritarian countries like Iran and North Korea.”
The increase in Russian bombing has been accompanied by a force build-up.
Konrad Muzyka, a military analyst with Rochan Consulting, which tracks Russian deployments, said the reported Russian shelling has increased from an average of about 60 a day four weeks ago. over 90 fruits per day last week. In just one day, 111 Ukrainian locations were targeted.
He also said that “the Russians are withdrawing a lot of equipment from storage areas.” However, he concurs with other analysts who say Russia will find it difficult to equip large numbers of new troops with tanks, armored vehicles and other effective equipment.
On Tuesday, Russian forces hit Ukrainian positions in Bakhmut with short-range artillery 197 times, and the two sides clashed about 42 times, the Ukrainian military said, significantly more than a month ago. Ukrainian forces hit back Russian soldiersattacked their lines again and again, the military said.
“They just move forward; Denys Yaroslavskyi, who commands a unit currently in Bakhmut, said on Ukrainian television this week.
Yaroslavskyi said that “super-skilled” soldiers from the Russian army are now supporting fighters from Wagner Private Military CompanyAccording to U.S. and Ukrainian officials, the force has sent troops into battle to serve as cannon fodder for months.
Andriy Yusov, a representative of the intelligence service in Ukraine’s defense ministry, said fighting is likely to intensify.
“We are on the cusp of a very positive phase,” he said during a national television appearance. “Both February and March will be very stressful.”
How the Kremlin will ultimately deploy its tens of thousands of new fighters is a matter of speculation.
According to Ukrainian military officials and analysts, Moscow may be preparing to open a new front, pushing troops across the Russian border to retake territory in Sumy or Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine after being driven out from many last month. It could escalate fighting along the eastern front to divert Ukrainian resources and hurt Kyiv’s ability to launch his own offensive. It may be planning an attack from occupied territory in eastern Ukraine to move deeper into the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, which make up the Donbas.
The only consensus issue is that Russia is not satisfied with the territory it has captured and is maintaining its ultimate goal of conquering Ukraine. The intensification of the offensive has continued the Russian pattern for almost a year: Ukrainian troops bleed through relentless attacks.
Oleksii Danilov, head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told Sky News on Tuesday that he did not rule out “any scenario in the next two or three weeks”.
“The main battles have yet to come,” he said.
As well as attacking and attempting to encircle Bakhmut, Russia in recent weeks has expanded its attacks against Ukrainian positions on and below the eastern front, according to the Ukrainian military and Russian military bloggers. .
At the northern end of the front, where Russia halted the Ukrainian offensive around the city of Kreminna in the fall, Russian reinforcements now had Ukrainian troops on the defensive. Russian and Ukrainian soldiers posted graphic videos of fierce fighting in the forests near the city, with the sound of automatic rifles and mortars shaking bare branches.
Elsewhere in the Donbas, the Russians tried to push back into the city of Lyman, where Ukraine retaken in OctoberSome recent moves suggest that Moscow may be laying the groundwork for a new offensive.
Colonel Sergei Cherevaty, a spokesman for the Eastern Ukrainian Military Command, referring to Lyman, said: “It cannot be said that there has been a major offensive operation, but the Russians are trying to take the initiative. .
On the southern edge of the Donetsk region in Donbas, Russia keep attacking the Ukrainian stronghold of Vuhledar, about 60 miles south of Bakhmut. The city is deserted but is located at the intersection of the eastern front in the Donetsk region and the southern front in the Zaporizhzhia region, a location that could prove advantageous for Russian forces trying to resupply troops. move between two fronts.
Even as Russia launched attacks along the east, Ukraine continued to target Russian positions deep behind the front lines. Ukrainian officials reported explosions Wednesday around the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol.
According to Ukrainian officials, after Russian forces surrounded and conquered the southern port city in May, they gradually turned it into a major military garrison. It is not within range of the missiles that Ukraine currently possesses, but Kiev has been able to strike deep into Russian-occupied territory in the past using drones and other means.
Andrew E. Kramer contribution report.
