Moscow’s troops struggled for months to make a decisive breakthrough in an offensive aimed at capturing the entire Donbas region, even as Ukrainian authorities said on Saturday that Russian fighter jets, drones and artillery had pounded eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine has repelled 70 Russian attacks on the eastern front in the past 24 hours, the army’s general staff said in its morning update. The city of Avdiivka, which has been under fire since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago, was hardest hit by the attacks. Also in Bakhmut, a city where both sides suffered heavy losses, and in Marinka, the fighting continued.
The fighting has presented a dilemma for the Ukrainian authorities in the attacked towns and cities. For months they have been urging citizens to leave, but some residents have remained, often hiding in basements amid relentless shelling, motivated by a commitment to their homes, by economic insecurity or by ill health and other factors.
A deadly attack in Avdiivka on Friday underlined the painful toll.
“A five-month-old boy and his grandmother were killed, while the child’s mother and father were injured,” the head of the regional military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said in a message on the Telegram messaging app. The family had refused to evacuate before the attack, Mr Kyrylenko added.
After Russian troops failed to take the Ukrainian capital Kiev a year ago, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia made the conquest of the Donbas his main military goal. In recent weeks, Russian forces have stepped up their attacks in eastern Ukraine as part of a new offensive attack.
But Britain’s defense intelligence agency said on Saturday that “it is becoming increasingly clear that this project has failed”.
More than a year into the war, the Russian army has suffered staggering casualties – as many as 200,000 soldiers killed or wounded, Western officials say, and thousands of tanks and armored vehicles destroyed or captured by Ukraine. Military analysts and Ukrainian officials say Russia is also running out of artillery shells and cruise missiles and is struggling to replenish its supplies due to Western sanctions. Many of the most elite, best trained and experienced units have been decimated.
On Saturday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu met with generals involved in Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine to discuss supplying arms to troops. said in a statement. Mr Shoigu said they had identified which ammunition was in greatest demand and “measures are being taken to increase supplies,” the statement added.
Ukraine is expected to launch its own counter-offensive in the coming weeks, backed by new weapons supplied by the United States and other allies. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine alluded to what was to come in his nightly speech, with a defiant sound.
“We are preparing our next steps, our active actions. We are preparing the approach of our victory,” he said late Friday. “We will not leave any trace of Russia on our land.”
Military analysts have said Ukraine’s counter-offensive could involve the Zaporizhzhia region in the south of the country. In recent days, there have been multiple reports of a troop build-up there by both sides and of increased shelling.
“The occupiers have taken up defensive positions. They are not moving forward,” Askad Ashurbekov, a deputy in the regional council in Zaporizhzhia, told Ukrainian television this week. “The fact that the occupiers are shelling the civilian infrastructure of the Zaporizhia region,” he added, indicates that Russia fears a possible Ukrainian offensive.