Putin is trapped

It’s a painful game of patience. Heavy fighting continues in eastern Ukraine; the Russian and Ukrainian troops each pay a heavy price in blood to hold their positions. There are no official death tolls, but hundreds are likely to die every day – on both sides. Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin’s troops are still struggling, and Moscow is making little progress. It is the next military failure for Russia.

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With the Russian offensive largely extinguished at the beginning of the year, Putin’s troops are running out of breath. The Russian army managed to almost surround the cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka in the Donbass. But the cities are far from being taken and the Russian troops are still fighting their battle. Ukraine strategically traps Russia in house-to-house fighting, as Kiev knows full well that Putin desperately needs a symbolic victory – preferably in Bakhmut.

But Ukraine does not give up on the city, always manages to repel Russian attacks. Only time will tell if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s plan will work. And it is currently working in favor of the Ukrainian military as tanks, ammunition and fighter jets arrive in Ukraine from the west in the coming months. The next Ukrainian storm will come. It could be Ukraine’s last chance.

“Russia falls into the trap”

Ukraine says it is preparing a counterattack near Bakhmut. Russian troops are “obviously losing strength” and are “exhausted,” Ukrainian ground force commander Oleksandr Syrskyj told the Telegram online service on Thursday. “We will seize this opportunity very soon, as we did in Kiev, Kharkiv, Balakliya and Kupyansk.” Russia wants to take Bakhmut at all costs and is not afraid of losing people or equipment, Syrskyj said.

Bachmut is still a meat grinder. Both sides continue to send new troops and equipment into the battle for the city. According to Russian information, only a two kilometer wide corridor is now open to the Ukrainian defenders and the city is almost surrounded. But shouldn’t Ukraine have given up Bakhmut long ago? Western military experts disagree on this question.

“While the Russian armed forces are extremely stupid, the Ukrainians are extremely smart. The battles for Bakhmut bind a large number of Russian troops. Soldiers, who in turn are missing elsewhere,” says Marcus Keupp, a lecturer in military economics at the Military Academy of ETH Zurich, t-online. In this way, Ukraine can maintain reserves for a possible spring offensive. «The more Zelenskyi emphasizes the importance of Bakhmut, the more urgently Prigozhin wants to conquer it. Russia is falling for a trick.”

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and his mercenaries lead the battle for Bakhmut. In videos and in a letter, Prigozhin warned of a possible counter-attack by Ukraine and criticized the Kremlin for not giving the Wagner group enough ammunition. The situation around Bakhmut is correspondingly delicate for Moscow.

Should Ukraine give up Bakhmut?

On Wednesday, Zelenskyj was at the front near Bakhmut, where he visited wounded soldiers and thanked his troops for their efforts. The Ukrainian president made it clear once again that Kiev intends to continue to defend Bakhmut. There are several reasons for this: Ukraine also lost a large number of soldiers in Bakhmut, and the city now has a symbolic value that significantly exceeds its strategic use.

Ukraine is also engaged in a long war of attrition with Russia. The defensive positions in Bakhmut are well developed, the Ukrainians seem to be holding up well in house-to-house fighting and the Ukrainian troops have good positions for their artillery on the surrounding hills. Ukraine estimates the ratio of its own losses to Russia’s at 1:7. Despite this, the price of defending Bakhmut is high for Kiev.

“If too many professional fighters are killed, they may not be available for the counter-offensive. Bachmut is a meat grinder for a reason,” military expert Carlo Masala said in an interview with t-online. “We are approaching the point where Ukrainian losses, no matter how much damage one inflicts on the other side, become critical to future operations.”

Waiting for the Ukrainian counter-offensive

It is still completely unclear when this Ukrainian offensive could begin. In recent months, the West has announced the largest military buildup in Ukraine since the start of Russia’s offensive war — and has already carried out part of it. Battle tanks, armored cars, MiG fighter jets and tons of ammunition are coming.

One thing is clear: the supplies will provide opportunities for Ukraine to liberate more territory. But any offensive must be well thought out and heavy weapons in particular must be integrated into Ukrainian alliances. It could be Ukraine’s last chance to counterattack. Finally, it is unclear whether the West will again be able to supply so many weapons systems at once. Therefore, success now depends on strategy.

Some Western experts believe that Ukraine could try to seize the land bridge from mainland Russia to Crimea. “I think it would be a huge success if Ukraine managed to separate the southern front from the eastern front, that is, to break through from Zaporizhia to the Sea of ​​Azov. Then the Ukrainians could also cause problems in Crimea,’ said Masala. That would be a major setback for Putin, who already celebrated the Sea of ​​Azov as a Russian lake.

Putin is on the defensive again

The nerves are already tense on the Russian side. Not only Prigozhin, but also the influential Russian military bloggers warn on Telegram about the Ukrainian offensive. They discuss that Ukraine could attack with swarms of kamikaze drones. The war bloggers criticize that the Russian military’s electronic warfare capabilities are too weak to repel such an attack. Therefore, they demand that the Russian soldiers be equipped with shotguns.

With a view to an approaching offensive, Russia is pursuing one strategy above all: to prevent a Ukrainian breakthrough and a collapse of a front at all costs. Because for Moscow, this could have catastrophic consequences for the entire course of the war.

That is why Russian security zones are already being set up in the northeast of the country, ie defensive lines where Russian troops can retreat. British estimates say Putin’s army pushed back Ukrainian troops during heavy fighting near the Russian-occupied city of Kreminna. “Russia has partially regained control of immediate access to Kreminna, which faced an imminent Ukrainian threat earlier this year,” the British defense ministry reported in London on Thursday, citing intelligence findings.

However, this territorial gain may be primarily a defensive maneuver. In doing so, Russian forces would likely include the Oskil River as a natural obstacle and also attempt to recapture the Kuyansk logistical hub. In short, Russia continues to take a defensive approach in eastern Ukraine. The British Ministry of Defence: “Commanders probably fear that this could be one of the front sectors where Ukraine could launch a major offensive.”

Ukraine does not have enough troops to attack on a broad front. For this reason, the military leadership in Kiev is likely to choose parts of the front that were previously identified as particularly weak. Putin, on the other hand, continues to follow his long-term strategy. He assumes that he can mobilize material and soldiers over a longer period of time than the West and Ukraine. But for now, the Russian attacks have subsided and the Kremlin boss now has to decide whether to mobilize more reservists for his war effort. Now his army could soon go on the defensive again.