By Bond Robertson – Now they have been fighting for five or six weeks around the eastern corner of the Donbass. It’s a small space in the big picture. The Russians have made very limited progress, but in the past week it has gone somewhat faster for them. On Thursday, they captured the cities of Svetlodarsk and Liman, but there is still progress at the same pace that we saw in the First World War, says Lieutenant-Colonel Geir Hagen Carlsen to Natavizen.
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He says there is a real danger that Russian forces will be able to intercept the cities of Severodonetsk and Luhansk.
– They’ve tried for five or six weeks already, but if they succeed now, it’s a matter of how long they besiege these cities before they can take over. If these cities fall, there will be no turning point in the war, and this will be a long war of exhaustion, says Carlsen.
Ukrainian authorities fear that Severodonetsk and Luhansk will suffer the same fate as the bombed port city of Mariupol if the Russians manage to besiege the cities. It is still unknown how many civilians were killed in Mariupol, but the Ukrainian authorities believe that there may be more than 20 thousand people.
Reminiscent of the First World War
– If you look at the map, this is only a small area of Donbass in total, which gives an indication of how stagnant this war of attrition is. In such wars there are difficult battles, but with very little movement on the map. What we see now in Donbass, says Carlsen, is more like World War I than anything else.
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The lieutenant colonel believes that an important and interesting question is how much resources Ukraine and Russia managed to get at the forefront.
The war is resource-intensive, and both sides lose a lot of equipment and many soldiers. Ukraine receives a lot of heavy equipment from the West such as artillery and armored vehicles, but the Russians are building the best they can. Russia has access to a lot of the material, but we suspect that much of it is in poor condition, rendering the equipment unusable, Carlsen says.
Lieutenant Colonel Carlsen says Russia will now likely send border guards to the front.
They have about 200,000 border guards, but the most important thing isn’t how many people you can reach, but whether you’ll be able to group them together into a working battalion that has been able to fight as a combined force, says Carlsen.
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Lieutenant Colonel Bali Yedestbo, head of the Land Force Division at the Military School, also says it’s a resource-intensive war.
The Russians fought as if they had the resources of the Soviet army behind them, but they didn’t. If they want to continue this limited offensive, they must provide more troops, Ydstebø told Nettavisen.
Ydstebø says the Russian offensive has taken very small steps at once in recent weeks.
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– It was very gradual, with some small improvements that required an enormous effort for every little kilometer they traveled. At the same time, there are now reports from the Ukrainian side that they have noticed a decrease in the intensity of attacks in the past 24 hours. Whether this means there will be a breakaway from the Russian side, or whether they need supplies, we don’t know yet, Ydstebø told Nettavisen.
Although the progress of the Russians has been very slow, Ydstebø says that in the long run it will give a big gain, if you can hold out long enough.
But the question is whether Russia has the resources to keep up with what it is now. Their attack is now in a very small and limited area, the Battle of Donbass has been reduced to this small enclave. Russia had to scale back its goals several times during the war, not because they wanted to, but because they were forced to. This may indicate that they have problems getting enough resources for the front, says Ydstebø.
war in war
Geir Hågen Karlsen summarizes the situation in Donbass with the fact that there is now a separate war in the war to build as many resources as possible along the front line.
Whoever wins that match can be decisive for the outcome of the war, and we must certainly not underestimate Russia, says Carlsen.
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– There have also been reports that they are no longer able to produce modern tanks due to sanctions from the West, but there is nothing I can confirm, says Carlsen and adds:
– It is a question of how long Russia will be able to continue this offensive, but Ukraine is also under tremendous pressure, after which we return to the question of who can mobilize and build forces with a sufficient number of people.
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