“Very bad feeling”: Russia’s spring offensive began

Profiting from the consequences of the war in Iran in more ways than one, Vladimir Putin now sees an opportunity to intensify the attacks

Russian forces have begun a spring offensive in eastern Ukraine, including the use of dozens of tanks and armored vehicles, according to Ukrainian military personnel and analysts.

The attack gains strength as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he has a “very bad feeling” about the consequences of the conflict in the Middle East for his country.

“They see that our diplomatic meetings, trilateral meetings, are constantly postponed. There is a reason: the war in Iran,” he told the BBC, in an interview published this Sunday.

“Putin wants a long war. For Putin, a long war in Iran is an advantage,” he said, since the rise in oil prices and the lifting of American sanctions on some types of Russian crude benefit Russia’s economy.

In this context, Russia is intensifying attacks in eastern Ukraine.

“With changing weather conditions, the Russian attacker increased pressure on several sections of the front,” said the head of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, last Friday.

“For several consecutive days, the number of armed clashes has exceeded 200,” he added, claiming that the Russians are losing more than a thousand soldiers per day.

“Active troop movements, artillery reinforcement, tactical aviation and the widespread use of drones are being observed in all sectors, indicating that the Russian army is preparing for a new offensive”, confirmed Dmytro Zaporozhets, from the 11th Corps of the Ukrainian Army, to the Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne.

One focus of Russian attacks has been the town of Lyman in Donetsk, at the edge of what is known as Ukraine’s fortress belt in the region, and a crucial stronghold protecting the larger city of Sloviansk.

The Third Corps of the Ukrainian Army stated last Saturday that the Russians used almost 30 armored vehicles, in addition to more than 500 infantry soldiers, in the area. But the Russian attacks were “thwarted on all fronts,” said the commander of that force, Brigadier General Andriy Biletsky.

The scale of the attack represents a change in tactics for the Russians, who for much of last year used small infantry units in an attempt to infiltrate Ukrainian positions.

“This battalion-sized attack is considerably larger than most mechanized Russian attacks in recent months,” noted the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

There are indications that Russian forces plan to intensify ground operations against other parts of the southern fortress belt, including the cities of Kramatorsk and Kostantynivka, important Ukrainian defense centers, according to ISW.

According to the 11th Ukrainian Army Corps, the Russians mobilized armored vehicles and motorized units, in addition to doubling the use of artillery and tactical aviation in the direction of Kramatorsk.

Ukrainian forces are heavily outnumbered across much of the front and rely heavily on drones to repel Russian attacks. The ISW estimates, however, that while Russia may make some tactical gains this year in Donetsk, it is unlikely to be able to take the fortress belt. The group describes Russian units in the area as exhausted, poorly trained and overworked.

Russian forces have reduced basic training for personnel involved in ground attacks from a month to a week, likely due to heavy casualties, according to Maksym Bilousov, spokesman for a Ukrainian unit in the east of the country.

Ukrainian forces also control the high ground east of Sloviansk. “For the enemy, stopping is the same as dying, as we will destroy them in the lowlands,” said Zaporozhets of the 11th Army Corps.

With the war now in its fifth year, the battlefield is increasingly dominated by surveillance and attack drones, making resupply of frontline positions almost impossible in some areas.

“There are constantly reconnaissance drones in the sky, incessantly searching for targets, and attack drones, such as the ‘Molniya’ and the ‘Lancet’,” Bilousov told Ukrainian media outlets on Saturday.

A Ukrainian soldier fighting in the south told CNN that due to intense drone activity, the gray zone controlled by neither side is increasing.

Despite marginal gains in recent months across much of the battlefield, the Kremlin continues to insist that capturing the rest of Ukraine’s four eastern regions remains the objective of what it calls a Special Military Operation.

Ukrainian forces still control about 20% of Donetsk and larger parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. They advanced in the south last month.