Ukraine holds out against Russia, but its losses grow as ammo runs low

On Friday, BBC’s Russian service reported 3,502 deaths of Russian soldiers have been publicly reported. However, it said many deaths are not being made public.

Additionally, about 3,061 soldiers fighting for the breakaway Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk have been killed, according to officials in those so-called “people’s republics.” The ombudsman’s office in Donetsk has reported the deaths of 2,061 soldiers and 8,509 wounded troops while some 1,000 Luhansk soldiers reportedly have been killed. 

In its latest update on the war, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Russian forces were deploying “outdated military equipment to Ukraine to replace losses.”  

Citing Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate, it said Russian forces used mines from the 1950s in Kherson. Allegedly, the mines were slated for destruction and detonated during transportation to the front lines, wounding Russian sappers. 

“Russian military command continues to face pervasive issues with force generation,” the institute said.  

It said there were reports of protests in Luhansk over efforts to force men to fight and that there have been 18 attacks on Russian military recruitment offices.  

“As Russian officials escalate mobilization efforts over the background of continued losses in Ukraine, they will continue to run the risk of instigating public dissent and pushback against such recruitment practices,” the think tank said.  

The heaviest fighting is taking place in eastern Ukraine where Russian forces are close to capturing the city of Sievierodonetsk, an important industrial city in the Luhansk region. 

As Moscow’s war machine grinds on, the Kremlin is becoming ever more open about having the annexation of occupied parts of Ukraine as its main goal. 

On Thursday, Putin drew comparisons with the invasion of Ukraine to the expansion of the Russian empire under Peter the Great, one of Russia’s most celebrated historical figures. Putin was speaking to young Russian entrepreneurs after he visited an exhibition in St. Petersburg honoring the 350th anniversary of Peter’s birth. 

“Peter the Great waged the great northern war for 21 years. It would seem that he was at war with Sweden, he took something from them. He did not take anything from them, he returned [what was Russia’s],” the Russian president said. “Apparently, it is also our lot to return [what is Russia’s] and strengthen [the country]. And if we proceed from the fact that these basic values form the basis of our existence, we will certainly succeed in solving the tasks that we face.” 

Podolyak, Zelenskyy’s adviser, said Putin’s statement was proof that the Russian president’s arguments about NATO expansion and the need to save ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine from “genocide” as the reasons for the invasion were false.  

“Putin’s confession of land seizures and comparing himself with Peter the Great prove: there was no ‘conflict’, only the country’s bloody seizure under contrived pretexts of people’s genocide,” Podolyak said on Twitter. “We should not talk about [Russia] ‘saving face’, but about its immediate de-imperialization.” 

Podolyak’s comments were meant as a rebuke to French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent statement that Putin must not be “humiliated.”  

By calling to “de-imperialize” Russia, Podolyak also seemed to side with those who argue that Russia must be defeated so badly that it can no longer pose a military danger to neighboring states, which some say means forcing the Russian Federation to be broken into smaller states. 

Macron’s recent statements about the need to keep the door open for negotiations with Putin has caused splits inside Europe over how best to handle the war and the Kremlin’s aggression.   

“We must not humiliate Russia so that the day the fighting stops, we can build a way out through diplomatic channels,” Macron said.   

Ivan Katchanovski, a Ukrainian political scientist at the University of Ottawa, said Putin’s statement and other developments, such as the appointment of Russian officials as administrators in newly occupied Ukrainian territories, show that Russia plans to annex all the areas its troops will manage to occupy in eastern and southern Ukraine.  

In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea in violation of international law and backed armed separatists in Donbas following the overthrow of a pro-Russian Ukrainian president during the so-called “Maidan Revolution.” Those events led to the outbreak of war in Donbas that killed about 14,000 people and caused up to 2 million people to flee their homes.  

Olga Oliker, the program director for Europe and Central Asia at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank, said Russia is preparing for the long-term occupation of the parts of Ukraine it can seize. 

“I think the Russians have probably given up on the notion that the Ukrainians naturally all love them or at least the Russians in positions of authority,” she said, speaking on the think tank’s podcast. “But I don't think they've given up on the notion that Ukraine is rightfully a possession of Russia.” 

Oliker said Russia will try to convince young people in the occupied territories that Ukraine belongs within Russia’s sphere and that “their future is with Russia and that their history and Russian history are intertwined.” 

She added: “There's a pretty strong narrative that there's something at least culturally genocidal about all of this, that there's an effort to wipe out this notion of what it is to be Ukrainian or Ukrainian nationalism.” 

She was pessimistic about any substantial peace deal being reached any time soon, though ceasefires are possible. 

“You could have pauses, I think, when you get to what people call a mutually punishing stalemate,” she said. “Where nobody's making much progress but everybody's feeling pain; you could see things sort of stop, or pause at least, and then everybody regroups and thinks about how they will do better next time around.” 

She said it is possible for battlefield conditions to change dramatically in favor of Ukraine, but she doubted that would happen.   

“Miracles could occur, but I think at present both Russia and Ukraine think they've got far more to gain by continuing to fight, so the smart money is on us watching them continuing to fight.”  

Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union. 

Follow @cainburdeau

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