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Russian forces committed a division to take several more villages in Ukraine’s east during the past week, as Ukraine’s European allies frantically increased their weapons pledges and the full effect of long-delayed US military aid became apparent.
Most of the Russian tactical gains came west of Avdiivka, which fell on February 17, and where the Russians have maintained their momentum.
Russian forces advanced into the northern reaches of the village of Semenivka last Wednesday, overran Novobakhmutivka five kilometres to the north and attacked neighbouring Solovyove.
By Friday, Semenivka and Solovyove, too, had fallen. Russian forces on Saturday launched a massive assault on Ocheretyne, two kilometres further north, and had reached its western outskirts by Monday.
Lieutenant Colonel Nazar Voloshyn, spokesman for Ukraine’s Khortytsia group defending this area, said Russia had committed four brigades to the offensive, about 20 000 men, and that Ukrainian reserves had been sent in to bolster defences. Fierce battles for Ocheretyne continued on Tuesday, but the Russian advance had already created a five-kilometre-deep salient into Ukrainian free territory.
The Telegraph, a British newspaper, reported that Russia had attacked during a brigade-level rotation on the front lines.
While Russia focused on the Avdiivka area, its attacks lessened in the other area of intense conflict, Chasiv Yar, some 45km to the north, which Russian forces have been trying to capture as a gateway to the rest of Donetsk. But on Monday, they unleashed their fury here, too, focusing on two villages to the north and south of Chasiv Yar in a now familiar Russian attempt at operational encirclement.
“There were attempts by the enemy to bypass Chasiv Yar near the villages of Ivanivske and Bohdanivka.
“In this way, the enemy wants to take the city in a vice, go around it in a circle,” Voloshyn told a telethon, adding that all assaults had been repelled.
Bohdanivka was being still contested on Tuesday, but geolocated footage showed that Russian forces had mostly overtaken Ivanivske three weeks earlier, and on Tuesday struck west of the village to reach the Siversky Donets-Donbas canal, a mere kilometre (0.6 miles) south of Chasiv Yar.
At that point, the canal runs underground and Ukrainian forces are deprived of a natural defensive feature.
“The situation at the front worsened,” announced Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyii on Telegram on Sunday, explaining that Russian forces were trying to use the canal as a line of advance.
The Siverski Donets-Donbas canal runs hundreds of kilometres through Chasiv Yar and into north-central Ukraine.
Syrskyii said Russian forces were also trying to capture nearby Klishchiivka, which Ukrainian forces recaptured during their counteroffensive last September, and through which the canal also runs.
Casualty figures suggested the depth of Russian commitment to these goals.
On Sunday alone, Ukraine’s armed forces said they killed or wounded 1 320 Russian soldiers, and another 1 250 on Monday, but it was clear that the vast majority of these were on the Avdiivka and Chasiv Yar fronts.
Russia rarely comments on its losses, while Al Jazeera was unable to confirm the toll.
On Monday, Voloshyn said the Khortytsia group alone had “eliminated” an average of a thousand Russian soldiers a day in the previous week. Out of 131 combat clashes on Sunday, Ukraine’s General Staff said 55 had been west of Avdiivka.
However, Russia has shown that it has a high pain threshold for casualties.
The United Kingdom’s minister of state for the armed forces, Leo Docherty, said Russia had suffered an estimated 450 000 casualties and had lost 10 000 armoured vehicles, including 3 000 tanks.
In addition, a proportion of the Russian losses consists of low-quality troops.
A Ukrainian platoon commander told Ukrainian media that Russian forces were unleashing Storm-Z and Storm-V convicts as a first wave of attack, followed by elite Russian paratrooper units. – Al Jazeera.
Peter Tanyanyiwa
Online Reporter