US weapons are coming to Ukraine, but Russian forces have gained momentum

Last week, Russian forces penetrated Ukrainian lines in the village of Ocheretnje, exploiting the momentum they had received in February from the invasion of the industrial city, Aviveka, About 25 kilometers southeast. The commanders quickly replaced military troops, exhausted by fatigue, with another brigade that had fought in the area for more than a year.

About an hour's drive north, Russian troops, including paramilitary elite units, have barely penetrated an important channel in Casiv Jar, a settlement that offers better views for artillery that has a target of critical railway supply for Ukraine's forces, writes Radio Free Europe.

Meanwhile, hundreds of miles southwest, the Russian infantry infiltrated a section of the village of Robotnje, which Ukrainian troops recaptured into a controversial counterensive last year, which was far from its targets.
The commander-in-chief of Ukraine has not spared words.

<x0) Russian forces, according to him, “were actively attacking along the entire front line with tactical successes in some areas”.

Surrounded and unarmed, Ukrainian forces received support that raised war morals last week, when American lawmakers finally approved a $60 billion arms-dominated aid package: antiaircraft missiles; ammunition for small weapons; vessels 105 millimeters and 155 millimeters; shells for artillery systems. High precision HIMARS, Bradley infantry combat vehicles, etc.

This package was approved several months since the latest essential donations.

But Ukraine's position on the battlefield is grim.

Her forces are few in number. Despite the government's finally passed a new law on mobilization, aimed at involving more men in war, it will take weeks, if not months, before new troops are trained, equipped and able to make any substantial change on the front.

In this situation, Russian commanders seem to have made a decision to increase the pace of operations, aiming at great victories to boast ahead of the National Victory Day celebrations on May 9th.

“In general, we are slowly losing territory”, said Ivan Stupak, an analyst with the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, a research institute in Kiev, adding that Russia is focusing its continued progress on a narrow front of battlefield in the Donjeck region.

Russia's “General Staff has deployed more workforce and equipment in Donjeck from other directions”, he told Radio Free Europe.

So now Russia is slowly breaking our defence lines”.

“We have reached the point where the situation on the front line is the worst since March 2022”, said Konrad Muzyka, a Poland-based defence analyst who regularly travels to Ukraine.

“The numeric advantage of the Russians continues to increase and with it, even the number of attacks”, he said in an X post once Twitter. “Ukraine has not yet had the darkest hour. She hasn't started yet”.

There's no good chance of the last aid package. Many military analysts have already reached this conclusion, privately, but are not willing to express it”, said Eugene Ruecker, a former senior Russian ananist at the US National Intelligence Council.

A Difficult Situation

The battlefield initiative has moved several times since Russia began its mass invasion in February 2022. Ukraine prevented Russia's advance in the capital, Kiev, but the invading forces seized part of the territory in the southern Herson, Zaporija, Donjeck, Luhansk, and the region of Harkiwi to the east.

Ukraine surprised Russian troops with two local anti-offensives in the fall of 2022, regaining considerable land in the Harkiv and Herson regions.

Ukraine later spent most of the following months preparing, training and equipping nine new armoured brigades, with Western weapons and NATO assistance.

Four other brigades also received western weapons, and in June 2023 Kiev launched a three-way counteroffensive.

However, she wavered, hampered by the broad Russian defensive lines.

On the other hand, Russian forces grew even more, reinforced by prisoners' brigades and a large mobilization ordered by President Vladimir Putin.
Russia's industrial infrastructure was mobilised to constantly supply the army with artillery, ammunition and vehicles.

In February 2024, Ukrainian troops were forced to withdraw from Avdivka, an industrial city that had given Ukraine a favourable spot on the regional capital of Donjeck.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed the country's famous commander, General Valeriy Zaluzhniy, as publicly giving a pessimistic assessment of the war trajectory.

Batics, since then, have turned more against Ukraine, in part because the flow of US aid and other Western weapons slowed into an internal political conflict in Washington.

Russia has benefited from a lack of antiaircraft protection, using heavy explosives equipped with wings and destructive satellite navigation.

A difficult situation awaits us in the near future. But, it won't be catastrophic, let's be clear”, Chief of Military Intelligence of Ukraine told BBC Kyrylo Budanov. “There will be no Armageddon, as many say... but it will be a difficult time. Middle of May, early June”

But critics say the Zelensky government was also slow to give priority to the construction of its defensive lines along the 1,200km front line, as it became clear that Russia's tactical power was growing. It took the government months to adopt new legislation meant to engage more men on the front.

The lack of new fighters was <x0 emergency” for Ukraine, a problem that was “exacerbated by lack of weapons and ammunition”, said Rob Lee, a former American businessman and senior associate at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

“The relative working force situation is probably the most important factor that will determine the trajectory of the war, especially if Russia can hold the recruiting of 20-30 thousand people per month”, he said in an X post.

According to Western estimates, Russia's death and injuries are about 450,000, although a senior U.S. Army general last month gave a lower figure of 315,000.

The number of victims from Ukraine is also large. Zelensky, in February, for the first time made public the war losses, saying 31,000 troops were killed in the previous two years. This number was widely praised as a large number.

Ukraine's brigades are currently operating with only 40 percent of their initial capacity in personnel and vehicles, according to Frontelligence Insight, a research organization run by a Ukrainian reserve officer.

The situation on the front line is expected to be stabilised with the arrival of new ammunition, weapons and newly established recruits, but trained”, the group said. “However, stabilisation is not expected immediately, as it will take time to arm, train and prepare new recruits”.

“Putin has no readiness to surrender”

Ukrainian and Western analysts say Russia has deployed about 25,000 troops, including several paramilitary elite brigades and automatic rifles, in its bid to invade Casiv Jar. Its conquest would allow Russian artillery to threaten the town of the railway intersection of Kostiatantnivka, south, and some of the supply lines supporting the Ukrainian entities.

This, on the other hand, could endanger larger cities, such as Kramatorscu and Slovijask, some 20 miles [30 km] north of which are some industrial factories, have a larger population, and are more fortified.

The Ukrainian Army and open analysts say Russian forces briefly crossed the channel on the eastern side of Casiv Yari earlier this week, but were unable to keep it.

Ukrainian analysts also say Russia is relying on the tactic used during the capture of Bahmut last year: World War I-style infantry attacks, with units made up of former prisoners and poorly trained prisoners, followed by more elite units.

Russian forces have priority, said Mick Ryan, retired general of the Australian Army, and those “will push hard to take advantage of them before US military aid arrives in the coming weeks”.

Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports in Ochertnje say Russian progress may have been in part due to a withdrawal, perhaps unauthorized or premature, from the 115 Mechanical Brigade.

Another NATO-trained and equipped unit, which had been fighting for months in the region -- the 47th Mechanised Brigade -- was ordered to return to the village's district to strengthen defence lines.

Military commanders are now said to be investigating the command of the Ukrainian unit and forces that have had to be pulled westward from three villages to the southern ends of Ocherenje.

“The enemy has infiltrated and acquired a field in a section of the option”, the lieutenant colonel and military spokesman Nazar Voloshin said in a television presentation, adding that, “all measures are being taken to bring down the enemy from there”.

“Ukraina is waging a fight against an enemy that does not show the tendency to stop its aggression, nor to negotiate”, Ruecker said.

Ruecker, now director of the Russian and Eurasian Programme in Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote a comment on April 25th.

“Beting his entire presidency for this war, Putin does not show willingness to give up. Ukraine's need for help, even with the implementation of a long-term defence strategy, is endless. Are Washington and Brussels ready for it?