Late in 2022, the war in Ukraine reached a new turning point. Russia conducted its “first wave” of mobilization and partially eliminated the personnel deficit that contributed to its numerous military defeats in the fall. Now, the Russian army might face a shortage of a different resource: artillery ammunition. Meanwhile, Ukraine is experiencing a shell shortage of its own. Overcoming the deficiency won’t be easy: the West, which is assisting Ukraine with supplies, has largely exhausted its available stockpiles. It is against this backdrop that Russia and Ukraine are fighting a protracted artillery battle around the cities of Soledar and Bakhmut, which is rapidly eating away at the remaining ammunition on both sides. Increasingly, it seems the true “war of attrition” — as many began referring to the war in Ukraine almost as soon as its hot stage began — will take place in 2023. The outcome of this stage will hinge primarily on which side is better able to adapt to its worsening ammunition shortage.
In this article, our editors attempt to assess the military situation in Ukraine based on the available data. Meduza opposes the war and demands the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine.
What was the condition of the Russian and Ukrainian armies at the start of the February 2022 invasion?
The Russian army
In February, Russian military commanders planned to mount a quick victory by launching a decisive operation and advancing its troops at a record pace. In the first days of the full-scale invasion, the Russian army captured a significant amount of Ukrainian territory, taking advantage of the fact that the Ukrainian military hadn’t yet had time to deploy and wasn’t ready to mount a full defense anywhere outside the Donbas.
Just a few weeks later, however, as Ukrainian units arrived at the fronts that had by then formed, the Russian army suffered a major defeat: it completely withdrew from Ukraine’s north (with the exception of the Kharkiv area, which was significant for its subsequent offensive in the Donbas) and retreated south — to 50 kilometers (about 30 miles) outside of Kherson to prevent the city and surrounding bridges from falling within range of Ukrainian artillery.
It became clear that Russia’s troops weren’t prepared to attack the positions of a fully deployed and well-motivated opponent.
In the next stage of the war, Moscow hoped to conduct a wide-scale offensive in eastern Ukraine. The Russian Armed Forces planned to exhaust the Ukrainian army’s reserves, sapping its supply of armored vehicles and personnel. At the same time, the Russian military's own problems had become clear by the spring:Its units badly lacked personnel: this affected both its troops’ ability to conduct combat operations and its supply chain, which also suffered from manpower shortages. Vladimir Putin was unwilling at this time to declare a draft to mobilize the necessary reinforcements (though there were rumors about a mobilization drive as early as May).
The practice of using battalion tactical groups (BTGs) consisting of soldiers at constant readiness (every brigade or division was instructed to designate these soldiers in advance) turned out to be unsuitable for a full-scale war; these groups were created for fast-paced operations against relatively weak opponents. BTGs have also been used to support hybrid operations, but in those cases, local partners have usually done the “dirty work” (such as in Syria or in earlier stages of the war in the Donbas). Neither of these scenarios apply to the current situation in Ukraine.
The Russian Aerospace Forces tried and failed to gain dominance in Ukrainian airspace. Russian aviation didn’t have a proven system for overcoming anti-air defenses like NATO does. Because Ukraine’s air defense systems are still operating, the Russian Aerospace Forces were unable to use the method that had worked for them in Syria: dropping conventional unguided bombs from medium altitudes after using computer systems to aim them. At the same time, Russia had few high-precision guided weapons.
As a result, aviation played a decisive role neither over the front line nor behind it. The latter is especially significant: the Russian military is still incapable of stopping the flow of Ukrainian reinforcements to the most difficult parts of the front.
The Russian army’s logistics system also proved ill-suited for intensive fighting. The Russian military depends on railroads and can therefore only attack from the vicinity of railway stations. It can receive supplies in the Donbas and in the eastern part of the Kharkiv region, but the railroad in the annexed part of the Zaporizhzhia region is only connected by rail to Crimea, which itself can only receive supplies through the Kerch Bridge. The railroad from Donetsk to Melitopol, meanwhile, has been impossible for Russia to restore; it’s too close to the front line.
Russia’s logistical problems have determined where it can and can’t launch large-scale offensives. Its only options are parts of Donetsk, western parts of the Luhansk region, and eastern parts of the Kharkiv region.
It was these factors that determined the course of Russia’s summer campaign. Because of its troop shortage, the Russian military was forced to abandon its plan to surround all of Ukraine’s positions in the Donbas. Instead, it had to choose a less ambitious course of action: conducting an offensive on Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk from Izyum in the Kharkiv region. The goal was to reach Ukraine’s main base in the region, in Kramatorsk and Slovyansk.
At the same time, without full aviation support, Russian troops were relying entirely on their superior artillery and ammunition supplies, which seemed inexhaustible. During the battle for Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, according to Ukrainian generals, the Russian army (across the entire front) fired 40,000–60,000 shells a day, while Ukraine launched no more than 6,000 shells daily.
Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk were ultimately captured in early July, at the same time that Russian forces (primarily PMC Wagner) reached the outskirts of Bakhmut. There, however, the offensive wore thin, and Russia’s units were transferred from Sievierodonetsk and Izyum to Kherson, where Ukraine was expected to launch a counteroffensive.
The Ukrainian army
In early December, the British Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) released a report whose authors included high-ranking Ukrainian military officers. It summarized the Ukrainian side’s view of the war’s initial stage.For the first few weeks after Russia launched its invasion, Ukraine was unable to deploy troops in the areas of Russia’s major assaults. It was finally able to complete its deployment in late March, which allowed Ukrainian forces to stop Russia’s offensives around Kyiv and Mykolaiv. Ukrainian artillery, which wasn’t yet suffering from an ammunition shortage at that point, played an important role.
Mobilized Ukrainians began joining territorial defense brigades as well as new battalions and brigades in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Over time, the units of mobilized soldiers became more combat capable.
Ukraine’s military command managed to save some of its air defense systems (though Russia’s first offensive destroyed most of its air defenses) and aviation (Russia’s Aerospace Forces were unable to stop Ukraine from sending its aircraft to alternate airfields).
After the Russian army’s retreat from northern Ukraine, the West agreed to ramp up both the quantity and quality of its weapon supplies significantly. In late spring, Ukraine started receiving heavy weaponry, including howitzers. This was especially significant, as ammunition for the Soviet-made weapons the military was using before had started to run out — both because it consumed ammo at a high rate and because it had lost multiple large storage facilities to Russia.
In July, when the Ukrainian army was retreating from Sievierodonetsk, it received its first shipment of HIMARS multiple rocket launcher systems. This immediately changed the situation on the front, exacerbating Russia’s already-serious logistics problems. By late summer, large Russian weapons storage facilities were blowing up practically every day. It’s likely that Russia lost a significant portion of its shells to Ukrainian HIMARS strikes. By the end of July, Russian artillery activity had decreased markedly.
After that, the Ukrainian Armed Forces took advantage of the numerical advantage it had gained as a result of the country’s mobilization (and of the Kremlin’s refusal — at the point — to conduct its own mobilization). This took the form of two major attacks:The first was launched in late August, in the Kharkiv region, and didn’t lead to quick success. From the beginning, Ukrainian troops faced combat-ready Russian reserve troops that had been transferred from the Donbas, and they suffered significant losses without gaining much territory in most areas. Nevertheless, by the end of the fall, Russia had abandoned Kherson. Supporting a large group of forces capable of resisting sustained Ukrainian attacks while its crossing points over the Dnipro River were bombed everyday turned out to be an impossible task.
Ukraine’s second attack was launched in early September in the southeastern part of the Kharkiv region. It caused the immediate collapse of Russia’s defenses and the destruction of Russia’s bridgehead on the Seversky Donets River, from which Russia had been attacking Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. Russian troops abandoned hundreds of armored vehicles in the course of their retreat. A week after the start of the offensive near Kupyansk, Ukrainian forces blocked the supply routes for all of Russia’s forces in the northern Donbas. As a result, the Russian army abandoned its defense line along the left bank of the Seversky Donets, as well as a large railway station and the city of Lyman.
The success of this offensive is directly linked to the Russian army’s logistics problems. After the fierce battle for Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, Russia was suffering from a severe manpower shortage. The Russian command was ultimately only able to devote combat-capable troops to one area that was under threat: its bridgehead on the right bank of the Dnipro (where it sent troops from Izyum, among others). In the area around the Balakliya and Kharkiv regions, the Ukrainian military encountered only small and ineffective Russian units.
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