Anastasia Galushka
and
June 3, 2022 at 8:46 PM EDT
Ukrainian soldiers are hiding under a tank while incoming Russian shelling is aimed at their position near the road to Lyman, Ukraine, on June 2, 2022 (Photos by Heidi Levine for The Washington Post). (Heidi Levin / FTWP)
ON THE ROAD TO LIMAN, Ukraine – First came the distant crash of Russian artillery fire.
Then the ominous whistle and the crackling of incoming shells, which landed about 50 feet from the position of a Ukrainian tank, sending dirt and stones flying and pieces of deadly metal cutting the air. The soil shook – boom, boom, boom.
Ukrainian troops dived under their tanks, shouting at Washington Post reporters to hide with them. Together, they pressed their bodies against the damp earth and grass as Russian firepower rained down on the eastern front, where Moscow concentrated its military power and inflicted heavy casualties on superior Ukrainian forces.
– Get out of here! Cried a soldier, realizing that the tank, though serving as a temporary cover, was in fact the main target. “I’m going! I’m going! I’m going!”
The group sprinted through the woods as the tank roared down a black path.
After reaching its 100th day, the war between Russia and Ukraine is now in a demoralizing phase for many Ukrainian soldiers. In the trenches of this coal mine, they are rocked by brutal Russian artillery attacks, reminiscent of the indiscriminate brutality of the First World War. They give hope of victory despite the grim reality of the growing costs of their struggle and successfully hold the line in many places to make the Russian battle a painful task.
Russian forces kill up to 100 Ukrainian soldiers every day and wound up to 500 more on the Eastern Front, President Vladimir Zelensky said this week. At this rate, Ukraine will lose in about two months as much power as the United States lost in Iraq and Afghanistan in 20 years. In recent days, Ukrainian territory has gradually slipped toward Russian forces, which Zelensky says now control 20 percent of the country.
“Russian artillery fires from morning to night,” said Vladimir Pohoriliy, 43, commander of the Dnipro-1 battalion’s intelligence commander, who holds several key positions in the region. “If our country shoots one of them, we get 10 or 15 back.”
The Russian military, after failing in its failed attempt to seize Kyiv and overthrow the Ukrainian government, regrouped for the second stage of the war. Moscow redirected almost all its remaining artillery to one area. The Kremlin hopes to achieve its new stated goal of capturing all of the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine, which together make up Donbass.
“In some ways, it’s one war, but two different campaigns,” said Michael Coffman, a Russian military analyst at the Virginia-based CNA. “The first was to decide whether or not Ukraine would survive as an independent state – and Russia lost this conflict decisively. … This second phase is about what territory this independent Ukrainian state will ultimately control, and that remains very controversial. ”
Latest updates from the war in Ukraine
Russia’s catastrophic mistakes and embarrassing retreat in the first stage of the war inspired Ukraine’s spirit and determination. But the barbarism of Russia’s concentrated artillery fire has made the second stage much more challenging for many Ukrainians in the trenches. There were relatively few infantry battles or tank-to-tank battles in the war; Rather, Russia is concentrating enormous artillery power on relatively small areas in order to make its way forward on the path of serious destruction.
“They adopted this technique, which is essentially World War I technology, using artillery to destroy everything in front of them and then crawl over the rubble,” said Frederick W. Kagan, director of the Critical Threats Project. American Enterprise Institute.
He said confronting such artillery bombings was daunting and devastating for Ukrainian troops.
“The amount of firepower, the number of explosions, the duration and duration of the attacks – all this together and the fact that you can’t defend yourself against it, you can’t take down the ammunition, means there are a lot of casualties and it’s also incredibly demoralizing.” said Kagan. “It’s disorienting. This is where the “shell shock” comes from.
Moscow is destroying cities with distant artillery in order to minimize its losses and use the strengths of the Russian army as an artillery-focused force. But Kagan said Moscow also relied on this tactic because Russian forces had been gutted by casualties and frustration with the first phase of the war and had shown an inability to fight successfully in any other way.
The losses suffered by Ukrainian forces are terrible, Kagan said, but they do not necessarily force Kyiv to capitulate or “lose” the wider war. Even if Russia takes control of the entire Donbass, which would be difficult due to Ukraine’s defense, the Ukrainians still have forces that can counterattack and retake territory elsewhere, he said. Ukrainian troops, for example, recently launched a counter-offensive near the occupied city of Kherson.
On Thursday afternoon, Ukrainian soldiers said the four artillery shots that hit their position looked in line with cluster munitions. Such weapons are banned under an international treaty because of their ability to inflict indiscriminate damage on populated areas or to leave unexploded ordnance behind while spraying “bombs” over a wide area. Neither Ukraine nor Russia are parties to the treaty.
No soldiers or journalists were injured in the attack, which appears to be coming from the direction of Lyman, a small town recently captured by the Russians.
Ukraine’s losses are rising as Ukraine expects additional help from the West. The Biden administration is sending Ukraine M142 high-mobile artillery missile systems, known as HIMARS, but US officials say it will take about three weeks to train Ukrainian forces once they arrive. Russia has longer-range artillery, which allows Moscow to strike Ukrainian troops from afar. Kyiv lacks such equipment and has less ammunition.
In interviews with nearly two dozen soldiers in recent days, many complained about the lack of adequate ammunition, saying they would not be able to repel the Russians and retake Ukrainian territory without significant assistance. Several servicemen contacted by telephone on Friday said large-scale shelling was taking place in key centers in Slavyansk and Bakhmut.
The situation is a challenge to Ukrainian military morale. Artillery shells cover a wide radius when they explode, sending life-threatening pieces of metal in all directions. Russia also uses TOS-1A systems, which launch thermobaric warheads, sometimes called vacuum bombs, that can kill soldiers even in trenches by triggering multiple pressure waves.
For weeks, Pohorili said, troops from his battalion fought to defend the town of Rubezhne, even as they waited for additional Western aid. The Ukrainians eventually suffered heavy losses and were forced to retreat.
The city is northwest of Severodonetsk, where Russian forces are fighting Ukrainian troops in the city center. If Moscow takes over the city, the Kremlin will be able to boast that its forces control almost the entire Luhansk region.
“We need help,” Pohorili said. “If they were infantry against infantry, we could do something about it. But they are 10 kilometers away, they are just dropping bombs on us.
Russian forces are also destroying roads and buildings as they advance, commanders said, leaving less room for Ukrainian troops – or civilians – to take shelter.
“They don’t hold the city until they destroy it,” Pohoriliy said.
Captain Alexander Taranushchenko, 37, said for three weeks his company had held a small position by the river that flows near Rubezhne, moving back and forth on a small footbridge separating them from Russian forces.
To have a chance to repel the Russians, he said, they need heavy artillery, along with anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons.
“The city is no longer standing,” he said. “The only thing left is our position. Everything is in ruins. ”
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The huge destruction of weeks of such Russian tactics has left civilians here in dire straits – some pushed into basements in besieged cities, others prepare for the same in the coming weeks. Many civilians were wounded and killed in the strikes.
In several small towns scattered near the front lines, water, gas and electricity were cut off after strikes that hit critical infrastructure. In Slavyansk, civilians, including the elderly, visit public pumps to fill jugs with water.
At a hospital in the region this week, soldiers got out of ambulances – bleeding profusely from obvious shrapnel wounds.
Alexei Golovko, 29, who belongs to the Dnieper-1 Battalion, has spent more than a month working as a doctor in the trenches in Rubezhne, where he said at least 10 soldiers were wounded every day. Sometimes, he said, they would be patched up and then immediately returned to fight. The wounds were almost entirely from long-range fire.
“We haven’t seen much of the enemy in the eye,” he said.
When troops witness the seriousness of these injuries, it could be even more dangerous to morale than deaths on the battlefield, several commanders said.
“The wounded can mentally damage the unit,” said Yura Bereza, 52, commander of the Dnipro-1 Battalion. “They are screaming, they are feeling terrible. People who are supposed to be shooting have to stop to help them. “
One recent morning, battalion commanders, each observing a different key route in the Donetsk region, gathered in a military room at their makeshift base. They leaned over …
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