Putin’s war machine grinds on in the Donbas

Russian forces are creeping towards Ukraine’s next line of defence after capturing the eastern city of Lysychansk, the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the Luhansk region.

Vladimir Putin’s troops will now focus on trying to seize all of the neighbouring Donetsk region, Luhansk’s regional governor, Serhiy Hadai, said today. He added that there had been “no point staying” in Lysychansk because of Russia’s huge artillery and ammunition advantage.

Luhansk and Donetsk together make up the Donbas which Moscow declared its absolute priority after ditching its attempt to take Kyiv early in the war.  

Russia has been concentrating its massive artillery bombardments on small pockets of Ukraine’s eastern frontline, including Lysychansk and Severodonetsk. The result has been a grinding war of attrition, modest territorial gains by Russia and a high death toll on both sides.

“In terms of the military, it is bad to leave positions, but there is nothing critical,” Gidai said. “We need to win the war, not the battle for Lysychansk.”

The Ukrainian withdrawal seems to have been the sensible decision – it saved hundreds of its most experienced fighters from encirclement in the Lysychansk bulge. Ukraine’s defence ministry insists it’s “far from game over”, while President Zelensky vowed to recapture the city with the help of long-range Western weapons.

But Justin Bronk, senior research fellow at the RUSI think tank, thinks this is unlikely: “Retaking ground, especially for the Ukrainians who have a lot of light infantry… but not a lot of heavily mechanised forces, it’s much easier for them to hold ground than it is to get it back.”

While losing Luhansk is an important symbolic victory for Moscow, the retreat from Lysychansk won’t turn the tide of the war. One big advantage of forcing Russia to incur heavy losses for modest gains in eastern Ukraine is that it diverts resources from the more strategically important theatre in the south. Keeping access to the Black Sea is vital if Ukraine is to avoid becoming a land-locked rump state.

Even so, every inch of territory lost or gained will play into how the war eventually ends. And with the Luhansk region under Russian control, Ukraine’s negotiating position has become weaker.

Among Ukraine’s Western backers, there is a tussle going on between the doves, who favour Ukraine ceding territory in exchange for peace, and the hawks who support Kyiv fighting on to repel Russia, and give the Kremlin a bloody nose in the process.

Zelensky is desperate for the hawks to prevail. For this to happen, he must maintain the narrative that Ukraine is capable of “defeating” Russia, although what constitutes a victory remains vague on all sides. Losses like Lysychansk will not help his case.