Ukrainian forces struggle to hold back Russian assaults in the east | DW News

Ukrainian forces struggle to hold back Russian assaults in the east | DW News

to Ukraine now where Ukrainian forces are struggling to hold back a wave of Russian assaults in the East Moscow says it has captured several hundred square kilometers of Ukrainian territory since the beginning of the year keeve says it is suffering from a lack of soldiers and delays in deliveries from its Western allies the shortages have allowed the Russians to advance in many places like adiva now they have their sights set on chazar a Ukrainian Retreat there could jeopardize the defense of the entire region our correspondent Nick Connelly has this report anything less than break neck speed is just too risky on these roads we’re heading towards Chiva with Russian troops now just a few kilometers away Russian drones overhead are a constant threat this Ukrainian Commander’s unit has been tasked with shooting them down a week or two ago was the last time we downed a drone the last time we got a Lancet drone was more than 3 weeks ago the weather’s been good they’re flying too high you can’t hit them with our guns a hedge R and a shallow Dugout are as much cover as these men have this counts as a quiet day around here often enough the shells are much closer look over there that’s where a shell hit last night and another one came in about 100 m further it was about 1:30 in the morning the shrapnel came flying past the crater was pretty small but there was a lot of shrapnel not everyone can ignore the noise the unit’s dog spends most of her time hiding palich tells us they used to have a cat that showed little sign of being scared it was only later when the cat was run over by a car they realized there was a reason the cat had managed to say so calm was DEA out here exposed to drones and shells and fight with the previous generations leftover weapons it’s hard to believe that $60 billion worth of us Aid is now on its way we’ll believe the aid is coming when we see it for ourselves we can’t see or feel any difference yet for now we’ve been withdrawing from places like aiva and the Russians have been taking villages we haven’t been able to turn things around yet all the talk here is about shells or rather the lack of them in 2023 regular Western deliveries allowed Ukraine to briefly close the gap in Firepower with Russia no longer Ukrainian military command says Russia is outgunning its troops five or 6:1 many here believe the true figure is closer to 10:1 suddenly there’s activity on the radios I asked whether I correctly understood that a Russian laet drone had hit a Ukrainian Target W yes it was a hit it found its Target they’ve got their reconnaissance drones up there all the time they find a Target and attack straight away jessar like bahmut before it has been flattened by Russian Artillery if Western help gets here in a hurry Ukrainian soldiers say they can still hold on to the ruins but if Russia manages to take jvr and The High Ground that surrounds it many we spoke to believe defending the remainder of Ukrainian held donet region could soon be untenable holding out outgunned by Russia and under supplied by the West has come at a price if the Aid had come on time things would have been very different because of the delays many many good men have died it’s a rare moment of reflection everyone here is acutely aware of rumors that Vladimir Putin has ordered his General to take Chess ofar By Russia’s May the 99th Victory Day holiday if anyone’s going to stop them it’s these soldiers I’m joined Now by Gustaf gresle a senior policy fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations welcome to DW can you tell us again why chazi viar is just so important well it’s a hillside from where you have good view in the more neighboring valleys so if you command The High Ground you have permanent observation and Fire Control options over a couple of other values uh valleys and that will make defending them difficult that would make uh supplying a Europe Ukrainian forward positions uh difficult to impossible so if chif would fall ukrainians would have to withdraw to uh deeper lines which are much further away from where they currently are and would have to give up further settlements probably on the way uh that’s why it’s so contested okay explain to us how Russia has been taking advantage of the fact that Ukraine is still waiting uh for more weapons deliveries from its allies we we just heard it in the report there uh that so many men have been lost but but give us a sense of how Russia is really sort of capitalizing on this well they have a superiority in Firepower first and foremost the lack of Ukrainian artillery shells allows Russia first of all to withdraw heavy equipment and has been damaged by drones but drones only damage these equipment and destroyed um that gets repaired turned around and sent to the front or it allows them to fire at Ukrainian positions at basically unhindered uh because counter battery fire that is artillery firing at other artillery uh has been curtailed on the Ukrainian side for the lack of shells uh um and finally blocking fire so if if there is a Russian attack going on um how many shells can you throw at the attack to destroy uh the vehicles uh that are advancing and destroy the man uh who are advancing uh if the blocking fire runs short then of course more Russian soldiers Will Will Survive the assault and break into Ukrainian positions uh and that is that is then a problem of itself mhm while Ukraine is so low on ammunition while it’s still waiting for more weapons deliveries what is its strategy right now I mean is it managing in any way at all to keep Russia at Bay well they’re trying to contain the losses as far as they can um the first batches of eight have already arrived and we see on the Russian loss counter that they have done a good work so far uh but of course even the full us supplement will only allow Ukraine to to sort of lower the Gap and and remain an easy defense but not allow them any sort of fire priority over the Russians that also we have to be aware of um the other problem and the video was actually good showing that is that Ukraine lacks a lot of Soviet air defense missiles that have been serving at the front stas OAS um these shot down the Russian reconnaissance drones and did not allow Russia to recogo Ukrainian their artillery positions Etc and that is a huge problem independently of all Western eight because the West doesn’t have equivalence to these um Soviet uh missiles the ukrainians now developing uh their own weapons intercept the drones other kind of improvised uh defenses to try to cope uh with this threat uh we’ll see how faster can do that at scale because it’s a huge problem okay so with the with the delays you know when the full amount of Western Aid Western deliveries get there will it have been too late I don’t think it will be too late because the war will go on for quite some time the problem is how long then will Ukraine have to manage on these supplies that’s the other big question ukrainians need to plan the war they need to know how much they can fire today fire tomorrow fire the next month or fire the next month from now um and on this the west and not only the us but also the Europeans are a bit sketchy when it comes to promises so often the promises run late uh often the the aimed production is not what the real production then cranks out and that makes it extremely difficult to really plan the War uh ukrainians probably will manage to contain the Russians for the time being but it’s really hard if you really don’t know what’s going to come or not going to come next month Gustaf Bessel from the European Council on Foreign Relations thank you so much for your time you’re welcome

Ukrainian forces are struggling to hold back a wave of Russian assaults in the east. Moscow says it has captured several hundred square kilometers of Ukrainian territory since the beginning of the year.
Kyiv says it is suffering from a lack of soldiers and delays in deliveries from its Western allies. The shortages have allowed the Russians to advance in many places, like in Avdiivka. Now, they have their sights set on Chasiv Yar. A Ukrainian retreat there could jeopardize the defense of the entire region. DW correspondent Nick Connolly reports from the ground.

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