Hurling entire battalions against Ukrainian defenses in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast on Sunday and Monday, Russian forces advanced a quarter mile through the ruins of the town of Maksymilyanivka—and continued their slow, costly march on the city of Kurakhove, two miles the west.
Capturing that quarter mile in Maksymilyanivka cost Russia potentially hundreds of troops in what was one of the bloodiest days so far in the country’s 32-month wider war on Ukraine. The Ukrainian general staff in Kyiv reported more than 1,700 Russian casualties—killed, wounded and captured—on Sunday.
The fighting in Donetsk is a microcosm of the wider war. The Russians are winning, in the sense that they’re slowly gaining ground. But they’re also losing more troops than they can mobilize. It’s not for no reason that Moscow has arranged for a significant number of North Korean troops to join the war effort. The Russians need fresh bodies.
The recent fighting along the Kurakhove axis was close and brutal. In the southern part of the sector, Russian motor rifle regiments and brigades rolled 19 fighting vehicles and four tanks toward the positions of the Ukrainian 79th Air Assault Brigade.
The 79th Air Assault Brigade is stacked with experienced anti-tank missileers and first-person-view drone operators. They got another workout on Sunday. “Our paratroopers once again organized a warm meeting for the invaders,” the brigade reported.
The 79th Air Assault Brigade claimed it destroyed five Russian fighting vehicles and a tank and killed 24 Russians. “The surviving armored vehicles were afraid of our anti-tank missile systems and attack drones—and ran way.”
Farther north in the same sector, the Russians had better luck. The Ukrainian 33rd Mechanized Brigade, equipped with up-armored Leopard 2A4 tanks, blasted the Russian vanguard. The Leopards knocked out several passing Russian vehicles with 120-millimeter cannons. “The accuracy of the weapons is insane,” the brigade reported.
But enough of the attacking Russians got through to capture the western edge of Maksymilyanivka and consolidate Russian control of the ruined town.
At least one Ukrainian analyst assessed recent Russian advances as evidence Ukraine is losing the war of attrition. “The trend is negative unless drastic measures are taken,” warned Tatarigami, the founder of the Frontelligence Insight analysis group.
In their view, Kyiv isn’t recruiting enough troops, or generating enough new equipment. The Ukrainian armed forces are struggling to induct more than 20,000 fresh troops a month at a time when they’re losing—you guessed it—as many as 20,000 troops a month. “Even if Russia halts advances and goes on the defensive, we lack the resources to reclaim territories to the 2022 borders, let alone the 1991 borders.”
But the Russians are stressed, too. The Kremlin recruits around 30,000 fresh troops every month—and loses 30,000 troops every month. Desperate to avoid an extra round of conscription, which would be deeply unpopular, the regime of Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin has negotiated with the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for thousands of North Korean soldiers to join the war effort.
By contrast, none of Ukraine’s own allies have deployed combat forces to Ukraine. This imbalance could prove critical. “Manpower is likely the single most important factor in the war,” noted Rob Lee, an analyst with the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.
“If Ukraine’s mobilization numbers continue to decrease and Russia can sustain its monthly recruitment efforts (including possibly with North Korean soldiers),” Lee added, “the situation will continue to deteriorate unless Ukraine’s foreign partners can provide greater support.”
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