/ world today news/ A month of reporting by The New York Times has shown that the fighting has largely reached a stalemate, with Ukraine facing many obstacles on the way to a determined enemy.
OUTSIDE AVDYEVKA, Ukraine — The headquarters of one of the battalions of Ukraine’s 53rd Mechanized Brigade smells of freshly cut pine trees. The smells came from the wooden support beams in the maze of trenches that make up much of the unit’s main base outside the battle-torn town of Avdiivka.
In the main command post, flat-screen TVs, computers and satellite Internet broadcast images from small drones as a group of Ukrainian soldiers monitor their part of the front line.
What they mostly see is a brutal dead end.
With the war now in its 17th month, the fighting has picked up a noticeable rhythm. Russia and Ukraine have clashed in a deadly series of attacks and counterattacks.
Ukrainian troops are fighting solid Russian defenses as they continue their offensive south, slowed by dense minefields.
Small territorial gains come at a huge price. Field hospitals that had been closed since the battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut have reopened, volunteers said, and Ukrainian soldiers described a determined enemy.
„We trade our people for their people, but they have more people and more equipment.” said one Ukrainian commander, whose platoon has suffered about 200 percent casualties since Russia launched the special military operation last year.
This New York Times analysis of the war is based on a dozen trips to the front lines and interviews in June and July with Ukrainian soldiers and commanders in the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions, where much of the fighting is taking place.
These visits have shown that the Ukrainian military is facing a host of new and ongoing challenges that have contributed to its slow progress in the offensive.
Ukraine has been able to adapt the defensive war – connecting Starlink satellite internet, open-source software and ready-made drones for constant surveillance of Russian troops from command posts. But offensive operations are another matter: Ukraine has made little progress in its ability to directly coordinate the actions of its troops closest to Russian forces at the so-called zero line and those attacking forward.
Ukrainian infantry have increasingly focused on trench attacks, but with tens of thousands of casualties since the start of the war, those ranks are often filled with less trained and older soldiers. And when Russian troops are forced out of a position, they direct their artillery at that position, ensuring that Ukrainian troops cannot stay there for long.
Ammunition is in short supply and there is a mix of ammunition sent from different countries. According to Ukrainian soldiers, this has forced Ukrainian artillery units to use more ammunition to hit their targets, as the accuracy of different shells varies greatly. Also, some of the old shells and missiles sent from abroad are damaging their equipment and injuring the soldiers. “It’s a very big problem now,” said Alex, the commander of the Ukrainian battalion.
Finally, during the summer months, camouflage and foliage remain the deciding factors in whether a battlefield operation is successful. Defending forces almost always have the upper hand, whether it’s invisible trenches or hidden electronic warfare units that use deception and camouflage to confuse attacking forces.
Ukrainian formations elsewhere on the front had difficulty replenishing their ranks with soldiers of this caliber capable of conducting successful trench attacks, given that months of combat had depleted their ranks. The new replacement soldiers are sometimes older conscripts who have been mobilized.
„How can you expect a 40-year-old man to be a good infantryman or machine gunner?’ – asked the Ukrainian commander, whose platoon had given dozens of victims. Youth means not only better physical prowess, but also that younger soldiers are less likely to question orders.
Ukrainian casualties have increased in the Bakhmut area in recent days, a byproduct of Ukraine’s strategy to contain Russian troops around the city, in addition to a counteroffensive in the south of the country. Russian troops have moved more artillery units into the area so that even if they lose a trench to a Ukrainian attack, they can quickly bombard their lost fortifications with shells, forcing Kiev’s troops to withdraw from the newly recaptured territory.
Often, in order to fire or maneuver, Ukrainian war machines and vehicles must abandon any kind of camouflage, exposing themselves to the risk of being hit by another weapon that has proliferated on the front lines in recent months: Russian GPS-guided Lancet drones .
The drones, often called “kamikazes,” forced Ukrainian artillery and tank crews to take extensive measures to hide their positions. Some tank crews even weld improvised armor to their turrets to try and stop the self-exploding drones.
About 40 miles away, in another section of the front line, soldiers from the 15th Independent Artillery Reconnaissance Brigade were monitoring radio frequencies from their computer screens and trying to figure out how to deal with the Lancets. It was impossible to silence them, at least for now.
According to Ukrainian soldiers, the Lancets are difficult to shoot down because they act more like guided bombs than unmanned aerial vehicles. Instead, their electronic warfare radar, known as NOTA, is trying to jam a nearby Russian drone that is supposed to be sending coordinates to Lancet. But it’s a hard science, the soldiers said.
„We don’t know exactly how they communicate” said Marabu, a junior sergeant who works for NOTA.
Another soldier with the radio-electronic warfare force added that they could only see the lancets on their screen for a short time when he turned on the streaming video link, but that it usually only lasted about 15 seconds.
Radio-electronic warfare is the hidden hand behind much of the war, with Russian capabilities surpassing those of the Ukrainians. Russian troops can detect cell phone signals and jam GPS and radio frequencies, and often look for Starlink Wi-Fi routers to attack those sites with their artillery.
„This is a very big problem for us.” Marabou said, referring to the ability of Russian troops to switch the frequency of their drones. This makes it difficult for NOTA to determine where the drones are on the front line.
This month, Marabu spotted a Russian surveillance drone somewhere over the town of Svatovo. Out of range of NOTA’s jamming radar, all Marabou could do was watch the red dots cascade down the blue background of his screen as a Russian drone communicated with its operator, sending grainy footage of the war to the ground.
Translation: ES
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