After months without significant changes on the battle front, and with winter upon us, the war between Russia and Ukraine has reached a situation in which holding positions seems an advisable strategy. In that sense, the order of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to build new fortifications to face the Russian offensives could be understood.
The Ukrainian decision came a few hours before Vladimir Putin ordered by decree to increase active Russian troops by 170,000 men. Thus, the personnel strength of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will be 2,2209,130 ??people, of which 1,320,000 are military personnel.
Zelensky gave these instructions on Thursday, during his visit to the battle front, and in the evening he announced it to the entire country in his usual nightly speech. “In all major areas we must intensify and accelerate the construction of structures,” he explained.
Ukraine is trying to prepare for a difficult winter in which Russia wants to regain the initiative on the entire front. In fact, Moscow says it has already taken it. The Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, assured yesterday that his troops “are advancing in all directions” and have improved their positions in all sectors of the front. “Our soldiers act in a professional and determined manner, occupy more advantageous positions and expand the zones of control in all sectors. We will continue to carry out active defense, increasing the combat potential of the Armed Forces, based on the experiences of the special military operation,” he said in a meeting with the senior staff of the Russian Army.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive, launched in the summer after months of preparations, has stalled in the south and east, and there does not appear to be any significant progress. Since the autumn, however, it is the Russian forces that have the resources to launch attacks.
Their pressure is especially noticeable on the eastern front, specifically in Avdiivka, a city near Donetsk that they are trying to surround.
Now the main focus of the fighting, the Russians “have considerably increased” their activity in recent days, Oleksandre Tarnavsky, Ukrainian commander in that area, said on Wednesday, according to AFP. Yesterday he assured that the Ukrainians “firmly hold the lines”, again and again inflicting significant losses on the Russians, who launch – as he explains – attacks with armored vehicles but also with human waves.
Neither side ever talks about their own failures or casualties. Shoigu asserted yesterday that Ukraine “has lost 125,000 troops and 16,000 combat machines during half a year” of a counteroffensive that, according to him, has failed.
The last one to speak about the Russian casualties was the secretary general of NATO. On Wednesday, Jens Stoltenberg put Russian losses at “hundreds of planes, thousands of tanks and more than 300,000 troops”, including dead and wounded, since the start of the current conflict, when in February 2022 Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his tanks and soldiers to intervene in the neighboring country. The figure is similar to that given by the Ukrainian Army at the end of October.
At the gates of winter, Ukraine has encountered stubborn reality. In an interview with the AP agency, Zelensky admitted yesterday that Ukraine has not achieved the results they expected from their counteroffensive. When asked by the interviewer if he is satisfied with the results of the counteroffensive, Zelensky said: “Look, we are not retreating, I am satisfied. We are at war with the second army in the world, I am happy (…). We wanted faster results. From this point of view, unfortunately we have not achieved the desired results. And that is a fact.”
He also explained that Ukraine has not received all the necessary weapons from Western allies and that the size of its Armed Forces does not allow rapid progress.
Zelensky implied that the arrival of the cold forces us to make new decisions and adopt a strategy to adapt. “Winter as a whole is a new phase of war,” he noted. His order to strengthen the front with defensive constructions is part of Ukraine’s preparation for the coming months.
