Now spring is arriving, the lights are still on, and, according to one recent poll,
97 percent of Ukrainians still believe they will win the war. Ukraine is even
exporting electricity once again.
Russia’s piecemeal offensive in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine hasn’t gone any better than its attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure. A three-week battle for control of the coal-mining town of Vuhledar ended in disaster for the Russians. Repeatedly ambushed by skillful Ukrainian defenders, the lumbering Russian columns had to pull back after losing an estimated
130 tanks and armored personnel carriers and
5,000 soldiers killed, wounded or taken prisoner.
Russia has suffered even heavier losses of personnel — mostly prisoners and mercenaries from the Wagner Group — in its suicidal, human wave attacks on the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. After more than eight months of fighting, the Russians have moved into the city center and are beginning to envelop Bakhmut on the flanks, but these advances have come at staggering cost. Western intelligence agencies estimated last month that Russia had lost
20,000 to 30,000 killed and wounded in the Bakhmut meat-grinder, making this the
bloodiest battle in Europe since World War II.
For 21 days in March, a U.S. official told me, the Russian advance actually stalled altogether. Last week it resumed. The Russians eventually might force the defenders out — but to what end? Bakhmut has little strategic significance and, this official told me, Russian forces are so exhausted they cannot advance past Bakhmut. A Ukrainian military spokesman claims that Bakhmut is Wagner’s “
last stand.”...
“Russia’s much-ballyhooed Winter Offensive amounted to just more Russian casualties and revealed the lack of operational capabilities, depth and imagination on the Russian side,” retired
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. Army Europe, told me. “The Ukrainians certainly suffered a lot of casualties during this time, but I think they’ve managed to prevent Russia from gaining any successes while simultaneously building up their own capabilities in preparation for a coming counteroffensive.”