Driving into the bomb-damaged eastern Ukrainian town of Kostiantynivka you can hear the impacts from the big Russian guns and bombs. Block by block they are blowing apart a small workers town just to the east called Chasiv Yar.
On the wall of a destroyed building a Ukrainian soldier had vented his frustration. ‘We are not asking too much, we just need artillery shells and aviation,’ the graffiti reads. ‘[The] rest we do ourselves.’ But even that sentiment is now starting to feel dated. A more accurate depiction of how Ukrainian frontline soldiers feel was probably the large phallus that had been spray-painted over the top of the cri de coeur.
If Ukraine does fall under Moscow’s writ, what happens next?
At first blush, it can be easy to miss just how desperate Kyiv’s plight has become. Many Ukrainian soldiers still repeat that mantra that they are strong, that they will win, and that Moscow will pay for its crimes.
I talked to Dmitro in Izyum, a town that has become a caravanserai on the road from Kharkiv to the Donbas. He had been given a couple of days off to get treatment for an eye infection. ‘We are thankful to the West of course,’ he said. ‘But we need more.’
Dmitro mans a 105 mm US-made Howitzer which has a range of about seven miles. He showed me a photo of the gun. ‘Our equipment is better than the Russians” he said. ‘My gun is as accurate as a sniper rifle. But we are running out of ammunition.’ I asked Dmitro what would happen if Ukraine didn’t get more supplies. ‘There will be a stalemate,’ he said. ‘The war will continue for another ten years.’
But even that view – broadly in line with predictions by western military analysts at the beginning of the year – is now beginning to look optimistic. In a grim assessment, General Oleksandr Syrski, Ukraine’s top commander, recently wrote on the social media site Telegram: ‘The situation on the eastern front has significantly worsened in recent days.’ The fear now is that, as spring turns to summer, the Russians will ratchet up the pressure until the Ukrainian lines begin to buckle. And at that point advances could come quickly.
Broadly speaking there are three major problems Ukraine must overcome if it is to halt the Russians. The first is that it needs ammunition. Ukrainian commanders are using drones to make up for the lack of artillery shells but that is merely slowing the pace of Moscow’s advance. Ukraine’s air defence, meanwhile, is running low on missiles. As its defensive umbrella begins to fail, Russia has been able to inflict major damage on Ukraine’s power generation capacity.
The second is that the Ukrainians need more strongpoints and fortifications. As I travelled the country on a 10-day tour of the east I saw fresh trenches and command posts, but, with a 600-mile front line, completing those works will take time.
And the third and thorniest issue is a lack of manpower. A new law has came into effect that brings the minimum age that a Ukrainian can be mobilised down to 25 from 27. But the military is still woefully short of men. The result is that veterans who have been on the front line for more than two years, and in some cases longer, are not being rotated out.
In Pokrovsk, a transport hub which the Russians have in their sights, I spoke to two soldiers who had taken part in the defence of Avdiivka, Ukraine’s most heavily fortified town that fell in February after a four-month battle. One of them was Oleg, 54, a machine gunner’s assistant. ‘It’s too much,’ he said. ‘Families are beginning to fall apart. We have been on the frontline too long and never get to see our wives or children.’ Andrii, from Lviv, was more bitter. ‘They have left us with almost nothing to fight with,’ he said. ‘It’s like asking a man to take on a tank with a pistol.’
As we talked in the main square of Pokrovsk, a veteran hobbled by on crutches. One of his lower legs was missing. Nearby women were selling vegetables. A few dozen yards away a man took out a saxophone and began to play. ‘I am a music teacher and I live about 40 miles away,’ the saxophonist said. ‘I come here and play for a few hours a week. It’s my contribution to the war effort.’
But such gestures, while they may be heart-warming, count for little on the larger military chessboard. According to the latest western analysis, the Russian army is almost back to pre-war strength after its heavy losses in early 2022. Ukraine’s military, by contrast, is seriously depleted. ‘Best case the Ukrainians will lose a bit of land this year,’ a western analyst told me in Kyiv. ‘Worst case they will get swept away by the Russians.’
If Ukraine does fall under Moscow’s writ – either by conquest or a forced and unfavourable settlement – what happens next? The Kremlin is nursing a fierce grievance against the West, and will have a battle-hardened and replenished army, and an economy retooled to support a military push. ‘If we don’t stop them here, they will keep heading West,’ Dmitro said. ‘Surely the West understands that.’
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