Winter has almost practically frozen the war in Ukraine. In contrast to the great advances that took place during the autumn, where the kyiv military managed to wrest the initiative from the Russian troops – the collapse of Moscow troops in Kharkov and the withdrawal of Kherson west of the Dnieper were the great milestones – in recent months the fighting has been limited to very specific areas of the donbas.
The most critical area is around the town of Bajmutand strategic enclave from the region of Donetsk which opens the way to two important cities in the area such as Sloviansk and Kramatorsk and which Russia has been trying to control practically since the beginning of October. It would be the spearhead to try to almost completely occupy a region that was, together with Luhanskwas a key part of the narrative that Moscow designed to start the invasion.
The Russian strategists designed an offensive with regular units and a part of those mobilized in September. they put fresh meat in the war grinder to collapse the Ukrainian defenses and they were close to achieving it, but the Kiev military managed to hold on and turned the effort of the Russian military machine into vain, which ended up choosing to reorient the strategy by eroding Bakhmut’s defenses on the other hand.
The small change of course was to focus on soldera population of 10,000 inhabitants before the war, known for its salt mines, which is only fifteen kilometers from Bakhmut and which was one of the towns through which the Ukrainians were sending fresh troops to Bakhmut to stop the Russian assault. They ruthlessly shoved human flesh back into the shredder, especially Wagner’s mercenaries, and succeeded in dismantling the Ukrainian defenses.
In this way, Soledar, a small town of no real importancebecame the first Russian victory since last summer. And once slightly reorganized, they have once again pounced on Bakhmut, where they don’t seem to care how many losses they may incur if they finally manage to take control of the city and erode some of the Ukrainian units in the process.
But this advance is not focused only on Bakhmut this time, but also on many of those small nearby towns that in the first months of the offensive provided avenues of fresh air for the Ukrainian defenders. In the last few hours they have managed to take positions in villages like Pidgorodne o Berkhivka. Of course, with a large bill in both human and material terms for the Russian troops.
Russians and Ukrainians have spent months in a war of attrition focused almost exclusively on the same areas. Losing troops and military material to erode the one in front. Everything to arrive in the best possible conditions or less eroded than the enemy in the coming months when, once the primaverathe large offensives with which both sides try to change course to the current situation of the war table.
The Russians will have had time to reorganize their troops, they will have formed and armed to a good part of the new recruits and the last convicts recruited by Wagner. In addition to having removed more old material from its warehouses. Ukraine will have had time to train your latest recruits and have trained in new western weaponry that it is arriving in winter, waiting for battle tanks and more weapons.
Russia you need to stop showing the image of weakness you are giving. Ensure, at least, the minimum territories with which Vladimir Putin could sell its population a military victory in the Ukraine. It is about Donbas (Donetsk and Lugansk, key in the invasion narrative) and the strategic corridor that they make up with Zaporizhia (with the largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine) and Kherson (with the North Crimean Water Canal) to unite Russia with Crimea annexed in 2014.
Ukrainefor his part, is faced with the position of being able torecover lost territories in the last year at the hands of the Russian occupation forces. And, if possible, the areas of Donbas and Crimea, lost in 2014. For this, it depends exclusively on the money and weapons that come to it from the West, which could come to a standstill if the military victories disappear and Western public opinion gets bored with the conflict and They stop putting pressure on their leaders.