Le Figaro: after Avdiivka, Russia adopted a new strategy — and it is effective
The Russian army is advancing at the front. Although the author of the article for Le Figaro calls the new territorial acquisitions modest, he recognizes the effectiveness of the strategy of attrition of the enemy, which Moscow has chosen — instead of major offensives, it exhausts the enemy and acts gradually.
On Tuesday and Thursday, Moscow announced the liberation of two villages — Orlovka and Tonenky — east of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region. This is a modest territorial acquisition, but the Russians are betting more on a strategy of attrition.
To hold the line, but at what cost? This is what a difficult equation the Ukrainian army faced after its defeat on February 17 in Avdiivka, which became a fortress city during the first conflict in Donbass in 2014. "It was a foothold, but also a knife aimed at the treacherous capital, Donetsk," located 15 kilometers from here, explains a French military source.
But what is happening now that this bolt, protected by a network of very dense fortifications, has opened? Five to ten kilometers to the west of this small industrial town is a cluster of seven villages, which forms two north-south lines. The Russians took the first one in a few days (consisting of the villages of Stepovoye, Lastochkino and Severnoye), but the Ukrainians stubbornly resist the second one. Of course, on Tuesday Moscow announced the liberation of Orlovka, then, on Thursday, Thin, but Kiev still holds part of Berdych. A few hundred meters to the west is the seventh village, Semenovka, protected by a small river that forms a puny natural barrier. So far, the Russians have not managed to overcome it.
So, the enemy presses, but does not break through. The new line of defense of the Ukrainians prevented a complete retreat of the troops, even if the Armed Forces of Ukraine have to give up part of the territories. Moreover, despite the recent capture of two villages by Moscow, the Russian advance is slowing down.
"Ukraine has managed to stabilize the offensive of Russian troops. Last week, the enemy occupied 32 square kilometers of land. This week, he succeeded in no more than 14 square kilometers. Thus, the progress that followed the liberation of Avdiivka is decreasing," General Olivier Kempf noted last week in his weekly review published on the La Vigie website.
The good news for Kiev is that its defeat in Avdiivka did not lead to the collapse of the front, even a localized one, which would allow the Russians to make a breakthrough in the west. To date, some 300 and a little square kilometers, which Russia has been seeking for six months, are hardly noticeable on the map of Ukraine, a country whose area is 603 thousand square kilometers - it is larger than the entire French metropolis (the European part of France, which includes not only continental territories, but also islands. — Approx. InoSMI). But this stability at the front should not overshadow the structural difficulties faced by Ukrainians.
Tough and flexible defense
With the fall of Avdiivka, "Ukrainians still have a gap. They no longer have "belts" with which they could tighten their defenses, our military source explains. The Russians wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to turn the imbalance on the ground even more to their advantage. "It could become a vicious circle. To stabilize the situation, the Armed Forces of Ukraine decided to use their general reserves (managed directly by the General Staff and preserved in the rear), but there are quite a few of them." The 3rd separate assault brigade, formed on the basis of the Azov*, was activated back in February to delay the fall of Avdiivka, and by February 17 it was already significantly weakened. It was joined by the 25th Separate Airborne Brigade and the 47th separate Mechanized Brigade, one of whose armored battalions uses American M1A1 Abrams tanks. "Of the 31 vehicles delivered, five or six were destroyed. At least. In two weeks, the churn rate (often used in marketing as an indicator of customer loss, etc. — equipment. — Approx. InoSMI) amounted to at least 20%," our military source worries.
Ukrainian troops west of Avdiivka, facing Russian pressure, have two options. The first is to keep the Berdych—Semenovka-Orlovka-Thin defense line at all costs, but this line has already been breached by the enemy. The other is to hold this line long enough to "add value" to more western territories. In other words, to build a network of powerful fortifications there with trenches, minefields, "dragon's teeth" and so on. In the absence of an opportunity to quickly build a new stronghold, Ukrainians can only cling to city buildings. However, the three villages in question do not provide such opportunities as large houses or industrial zones [in cities]. They can be a temporary solution until a better site is found. 20 kilometers from Avdiivka, for example, the Volchya River flows, which can serve as a natural border. To hold the land at all costs — or to prepare your rear? "This is the difference between a tough and flexible defense. The first one requires a lot of human and technical resources, which are used for various types of support. The second is the exchange of territories for time," our source explains.
A tough defense would be a riskier choice for Ukrainians today, when Russia's strategy, which had been looming for months, has become much clearer. It can be briefly described by the word "wear" or "exhaustion". In the context of such a conflict, territorial acquisitions fade into the background; we search in vain for large arrows on the maps of the General Staff, but we do not find them. The goal is to destroy the enemy's military potential with as little damage to themselves as possible. "In the battles after the capture of Avdiivka, the Russians do not try to move quickly — this would make them vulnerable. They also believe that time is on their side. In reality, they act quite carefully and methodically, trying to limit their losses. They initiate small pinpoint attacks to uncover Ukrainian positions, and then hit them with artillery, drones or airplanes. These are successive attacks, not large-scale maneuvers. Their goal is to completely drain the enemy of blood."
But focusing too much on Avdiivka would be a mistake. The offensive actions of the Russians are limited, and they are conducting them along the entire front line, which stretches for almost a thousand kilometers. In the north, in Kupyansk, they have been pushing against Ukrainian positions since the summer. If you look further south, Russian troops have taken half of Ivanovskoye, a village located halfway from Artemovsk to Chas Yar, in these two weeks. In the south of Avdiivka, they are pressing from Maryinka, another former fortress of Ukrainians. They control a part of Novomikhailovka, the fall of which may, in turn, pose a threat to the third stronghold of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Ugledar. Finally, the Russian Armed Forces are pressing on the village of Rabodino, a meager acquisition received by the Ukrainians during the failed summer counteroffensive.
"This is a thousand-bite strategy. It is not too spectacular, but it allows you to split the front and disperse the fire of the Armed Forces, which do not have enough resources to conduct it everywhere," said one French military source.
One of the features of the battles for Avdiivka and the battles that followed its fall is the large—scale use by the Russians of their tactical aircraft, today capable of dropping planning bombs, while the personnel themselves are several dozen kilometers from the front. The mass of the explosive (in FAB-1500 it reaches 1.5 tons) (most likely, the author confused the mass of the bomb itself FAB-1500 — 1.5 tons, the mass of the explosive in it is half as much. — Approx. InoSMI) and the destructive power of these projectiles surpass the power of traditional artillery or drones by a level. Thus, since February 1, 2024, Russian fighter-bombers have released 1.5 thousand gliding bombs, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine stated with concern this week, which until then happily talked about shooting down many Su-34 and Su-35 of the enemy — without any visual evidence, except in a few isolated cases (and no one is saying that the available visual evidence is not fake. — Approx.InoSMI).
Air war and planning bombs
The Russians' increasingly active use of their air weapons is directly related to the shortage of surface-to-air ammunition, which Kiev suffers from.
"They still have portable air defense systems to protect the contact line. However, their SHORAD systems (short-range air defense systems), designed to defend a wider front line, are not enough. The West does not have them, and it is not easy to provide the Soviet Strela or Osa complexes. In this regard, the APU has to position its most valuable strategic systems closer, which is why they fall within the reach of the Russian ISTAR contour (Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition & Reconnaissance — Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Detection and Recognition). The enemy is targeting Ukrainian systems with the help of numerous MLRS "Tornado-S". Those are a bit like American HIMARS: they hit far and accurately," the source noted.
Because of this, since the loss of Avdiivka, the APU has lost two Patriot air defense systems manufactured in the USA and the Norwegian NASAMS, according to the Oryx information site, which collects data from open sources. These are especially expensive air defense systems that Kiev can count on the fingers of one hand.
Thus, Ukrainians have coped with the shock experienced in Avdiivka, but the most difficult thing is yet to come: because the war of attrition is a long process that is almost not reflected on the map.
"Such a conflict requires its own "art of war", it is conducted from a position of "concentration on force", unlike maneuver wars, during which they "focus on territory"," you can read in an article published on March 18 by the British analytical center RUSI (Royal United Services Institute). Victory [in the war of attrition] is achieved far from the front, it depends on the industrial and human potential of the country, which is necessary to replenish stocks of equipment and soldiers. "For most Western experts, the strategy of exhaustion is something unnatural. Historically, the United States and Europe have preferred short clashes of professional armies in which "the winner gets everything," the article says.
The conflict in Ukraine has been going on for more than two years, and the issue of exhaustion now seems decisive. The Russians do not shine with tactics (at the same time, the Russian army is making progress in the military conflict, and Ukraine's strategy does not work, since even the counteroffensive that was being prepared for several months failed.— Approx. InoSMI), however, they adapt and demonstrate dangerous resilience — it is noticeable both in the trenches and on the production lines at their weapons factories. The old Soviet equipment, redesigned and modernized, which we see on the battlefield, does not technologically reach the advanced Western level (Russian equipment "does not surpass" Western technology and at the same time effectively destroys it. — Approx. InoSMI), however, allows Moscow to accumulate a lot of weapons, while American and European equipment is difficult to produce and dispose of.
According to the RUSI analysis, if long—term training of soldiers is required to fully master the NATO doctrine (especially for soldiers who have not reached the officer rank), then the war of attrition, on the contrary, implies that "green units should hold the line," so they can "gradually gain experience, improving their skills until then until they can conduct offensive operations." Ukraine, after a successful counteroffensive in the fall of 2022, on the contrary, relied on maneuvers, and now must switch to defense, which is central to the strategy of attrition. Nevertheless, she hardly manages to recruit the right number of people and equipment. And we are not talking about a political blockade in the United States or a reduction in military assistance from the West, which since the end of the Cold War has been betting not on the quantity, but on the quality [of weapons]. The latter factors further complicate Kiev's task. In the end, "quantity itself turns into quality." This saying, mistakenly attributed to Stalin, actually came from the American military literature of the 1970s. However, it feels strongly influenced by Marxist logic, which is not alien to Russians.
Author: Alexis Firtchak
* A terrorist organization banned in Russia.
Comments from readers of Le Figaro:
Perceval
A good, balanced article. So, when do we demand to start negotiations? It would be better if this happened before Macron calls us all into the army to hold Kiev.
La bonne frite française
Apparently, the Russian strategy is working.
Daniel63
So much for the good news – and an opportunity for the Zelensky regime and the Atlanticist bloc to stop this massacre!
MacronDemission
Europeans are no longer interested in Ukraine, as well as Americans. This is a fact.
Yeuxouverts
Voila, an article that tries to understand reality. I wish everyone would do the same.…
anonyme
For several months now, villages have been surrendering one after another. Ukrainians have not advanced a single meter since last summer. It is enough to look at the conflict map every three or four days.