How Ukrainian retreats in the Donbas can become a nightmare for the Russians

It has been 133 days since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. On Wednesday, the fighting in eastern Ukraine continues following recent successes of the Russian military in the region.

Donbas: The next day

With the Luhansk province under Russian control after the capture of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, the Russian military is eyeing the Donetsk province right next door. Slovyansk, in the north, and Bakhmut, in the south, are where the Russian military is now focusing most of its attention in the Donbas.

However, it is important to note that it was the Ukrainians who chose to withdraw from their previous positions in the Luhansk province. That was a strategic withdrawal because now the Russian military is attacking from three directions instead of the five or six directions it was attacking before. Additionally, the frontline is now straighter, which forces the Russians to attack mostly from the front, and that allows the Ukrainians to defend better. Furthermore, the Russian military is severely lacking in combined arms warfare, which would further frustrate any frontal offensives.

Nothing major has happened on the north (Kharkiv) and south (Kherson) fronts.

After the recent successes in the Donbas, the Kremlin is committed to continuing the war.

“Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev restated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s initial objectives for operations in Ukraine, suggesting that the Kremlin retains maximalist objectives including regime change and territorial expansion far beyond the Donbas,” the Institute for the Study of War assessed in its latest operational update.

Russian casualties

A Ukrainian Naval Forces marine stands guard next to a BTR-80 armored personnel carrier July 30, 2015, during Rapid Trident in Yavoriv, Ukraine. Rapid Trident is a long-standing U.S. Army Europe-led cooperative training exercise focused on peacekeeping and stability operations. More than 1,800 personnel from 18 different nations are participating in the exercise. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Alexander Skripnichuk, 13th Public Affairs Detachment)

Every day, the Ukrainian military is providing an update on their claimed Russian casualties. These numbers are official figures and haven’t been separately verified.

However, Western intelligence assessments and independent reporting corroborate, to a certain extent, the Ukrainian casualty claims. For example, the Oryx open-source intelligence research page has visually verified the destruction or capture of more than 800 Russian tanks (which amounts to more tanks than the combined armor capabilities of France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom) and more than 4,500 military vehicles of all types; this assessment has been confirmed by the British Ministry of Defense.

The same independent verification exists for most of the other Ukrainian claims. Only recently the Pentagon acknowledged that the Russian military has lost thousands of combat vehicles of all types, including over 1,000 tanks, and dozens of fighter jets and helicopters.

Furthermore, more recent reports that are citing Western intelligence officials indicate that the Russian military has suffered up to 20,000 fatalities in the war so far.

It is very hard to verify the actual numbers unless one is on the ground. However, after adjusting for the fog of war and other factors, the Western official numbers are fairly close to the Ukrainian claims.

As of Wednesday, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is claiming the following Russian casualties:

36,500 Russian troops killed (approximately three times that number wounded and captured)
3,789 armored personnel carriers destroyed
2,648 vehicles and fuel tanks
1,600 tanks
812 artillery pieces
664 tactical unmanned aerial systems
217 fighter, attack, and transport jets
247 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS)
187 attack and transport helicopters
153 cruise missiles shot down by the Ukrainian air defenses
153 anti-aircraft batteries
65 special equipment platforms, such as bridging equipment
15 boats and cutters
four mobile Iskander ballistic missile systems

A Russian tank being struck by incoming fire.

Over the past weeks, the rate of Russian casualties has slowed down despite continuous pressure and offensive operations in the Donbas. This suggests two things: First, the Russian commanders are taking a more cautious approach to their offensive operations, utilizing combined arms warfare to achieve their goals; and second, the Ukrainian forces are running out of combat power or ammunition — and this is expected after over three months of war against the Russian military. Recent reports from the ground suggest that both of these factors are true, and that the fatigue of warfare is catching up on both sides.

For most of May month, the Russian military suffered the greatest casualties around the Slovyansk, Kryvyi Rih, and Zaporizhzhia areas, reflecting the heavy fighting that was going on there. As the days and weeks went on, most of the heavy fighting shifted toward the direction of Bakhmut, southeast of Slovyansk, around Severodonetsk, Lyman, and Lysychansk.

Then the location of the heaviest casualties shifted again westwards toward the area of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — where one of Europe’s largest nuclear plants is located — as a result of a Ukrainian counteroffensive in and around the area.

On Wednesday, Ukrainian forces inflicted the heaviest casualties in the vicinity of Sloviansk and Donetsk.

The stated goal of the Russian military for the renewed offensive in the east is to establish full control over the pro-Russian breakaway territories of Donetsk and Luhansk and create and maintain a land corridor between these territories and the occupied Crimea.

Author

Stavros Atlamazoglou

Greek Army veteran (National service with 575th Marines Battalion and Army HQ). Johns Hopkins University. You will usually find him on the top of a mountain admiring the view and wondering how he got there.

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