Russia’s Swift March Forward into Eastern Ukraine

For much of the past year, Russian forces have launched bloody attacks on Ukrainian territory that have often yielded limited gains. But the relentless offensive is now starting to pay off: In October, Russia gained the most territory since the summer of 2022, as Ukrainian lines buckled under constant pressure.

In the past month, Russian forces have seized more than 160 square miles of land in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, the main theater of the war today. That allowed them to take control of strategic cities that strengthened Ukrainian defenses in the area, starting with Vuhledar in early October. This past week, the battle has broken out in Selydove, which seems to be lost.

Finally, experts say, these advantages, in the middle of a very fast war, will help the Russian army to protect its sides before starting the attack on the city of Pokrovsk, an important transportation center of the Ukrainian army in the Donbas.

Russia’s rapid advance is a dramatic change from last year’s situation, when the front lines remained largely static, both sides launching powerful attacks that failed miserably.

But the intensity that defined 2023 laid the foundation for Russia’s recent progress. Still, Russia’s offensive has gradually weakened Ukraine’s military to the point that its forces are so spread out that they can no longer hold some of their positions, Ukrainian military and military analysts say.

Half of Russia’s territorial gains in Ukraine so far this year have been made in the past three months alone, according to Pasi Paroinen, a military expert with the Finland-based Blackbird Group. “The situation in the southeast of Donbas is rapidly deteriorating,” he said.

Mr. Paroinen likened the relentless attacks that Ukrainian forces must try to escape to “an ongoing game of mole bombing, with new crisis points emerging faster than they can deal with.” That allows Russia to advance quickly whenever it finds a weak spot.

Vincent Tourret, an analyst at the French Foundation for Strategic Research, pointed to other factors that have helped Russia advance, including its increased use of powerful guided bombs, which can destroy strong enemy positions, and the lack of Ukrainian fortifications in the current fighting zone.

“Ukraine’s defenses are getting hit, the terrain is getting more favorable for the Russian attackers and, moreover, the Russians are having a better effect” with guided bombs, said Mr. Tourret. “These three factors combine to explain Russia’s increasing interests.”

The Ukrainian military has also suffered from severe manpower shortages that have caused them to spend a lot of time on the battlefield. In order to solve this problem, Oleksandr Lytvynenko, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, told the Parliament on Tuesday that 160,000 additional people will be drafted, with the aim of increasing the manpower of the units to 85 percent.

In the past few months or so, Russian forces have been breaking through long-held Ukrainian strongholds, such as Chasiv Yar. Russian troops had long been blocked by the canal that separates the city from its outskirts, which served as a natural barrier for the Ukrainians. But recently, according to the British Ministry of Defense, it is “highly possible” that Russia “crossed the river and “reached the city limits.”

In some places, the Russian army used a threatening encirclement tactic to force Ukrainian forces to withdraw, such as in Selydove. Serhii Kuzan, chairman of the Security and Cooperation Center of Ukraine, an independent research group, said Selydove had secured the southern side of Pokrovsk and that its capture would help Russia deploy weapons and secure supply routes there.

The semi-circle formed around the cities by Russia’s encirclement strategy gave the Donbas front a rugged appearance.

The Donbas, which includes two regions in eastern Ukraine, Luhansk and Donetsk, has long been a key target for Russia.

Russia’s recent advances point to another of Ukraine’s weaknesses, military experts say: a lack of fortifications.

After capturing the fortified town of Vuhledar earlier this month, Russian troops encountered an open area with Ukrainian defense lines and several urban areas where Ukrainian troops could enter to form strong resistance. In the past week, Russia has advanced about six miles north of Vuhledar – an unusually fast pace compared to previous gains.

“The Russians are now well past the old site and extensive bomb sites, which stopped the previous attack on Vuhledar in 2023,” said Mr. Paroinen.

To make matters worse, Ukraine has weakened its positions in the Donbas by redeploying veteran units from there to Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched a surprise offensive along the border this summer.

Soldiers are often replaced by less experienced units that struggle to fend off Russian attacks. Mr. Tourret noted that many of the units now manning the front line in Donbas are from Ukraine’s Territorial Defense – an army made up mostly of civilians who volunteered to fight Russian invaders in 2022, but lacked the training and equipment of regular army units.

Mr. Paroinen said Russia’s recent rapid development supports “the overall picture we have of the Ukrainian forces: Reserves are low, many quality units are stuck in Kursk and Russia has enough power left to exploit any weakness in Ukrainian lines.”