The Press in Ukraine | The anguish of an endless war

After the failure of the summer counter-offensive, Ukrainian soldiers deployed on the Eastern Front are now struggling with freezing temperatures, a shortage of ammunition and the omnipresence of a fearsome new type of drone. And live in the anguish of a frozen front, not only for the winter, but for years.

(Vouhledar and Chasiv Yar, in Donbass) “A drone flies over the position, everyone takes cover!” » Sacha*, a young Ukrainian infantryman, dives into a trench filled with fresh snow. Endless minutes pass in silence, punctuated by the sound of artillery battles underway behind the horizon. Then a sudden buzzing filled the morning air. A small commercial drone levitates at a low altitude before flying away.

Does it belong to Russian soldiers? “It’s impossible to distinguish their drones from ours, they are everywhere,” grumbled Sacha before continuing his path along a maze of trenches separating two fields petrified by the freezing temperatures.

The furrow soon gives way to an observation post dug underground. Two cold lookouts monitor the plains of Donbass from a loophole, using simple binoculars.

Below a gentle slope, less than 2 km away, the snow-covered roofs of the small village of Pavlivka emerge in a reddish dawn. This is where the first Russian positions are established. “There are around 70 of them holding the village. We see them come and go every day, but we rarely confront each other. The last time the Russians tried to storm our position was about two months ago. We shot them like rabbits,” explains Olexandre, one of the two lookouts, a steaming cup of coffee in hand, while the temperature is around -10°C.

“The front is frozen, probably for years”

Three kilometers further east, the austere silhouette of the buildings of Vouhledar emerges against a burning horizon. The mining town, held by troops from Kyiv, was the scene of a major battle a year ago. Nearly 20,000 Russian soldiers accompanied by a column of around 300 armored vehicles then marched towards the city across fields, before being routed by Ukrainian artillery. Moscow would have lost an entire brigade – almost 5,000 soldiers and 130 armored vehicles. Five months later, Kyiv forces attacked 30 km further west, from the village of Velyka Novosilka.

This summer counter-offensive looked promising: Volodymyr Zelensky’s troops had built up an impressive stock of Western weapons and aimed to achieve a breakthrough towards the Sea of ​​Azov. However, the lack of air cover and the density of the opposing defense lines stopped the Ukrainian push in its tracks. Since their respective failures, Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have observed each other in Vouhledar like earthenware dogs.

Ammunition shortage

A little further north, the front line, however, is incandescent. Since the fall, Russia has been leading an offensive on Avdiivka, another mining town in Donbass. Ukraine, which has redeployed part of its Western armor there, is gradually giving up ground. This withdrawal is partly tactical: as in Bakhmout last spring, the Ukrainian soldiers are retreating in good order to inflict maximum damage on the enemy. But resources are lacking. Kyiv fires five times fewer shells every day than Moscow.

After a last cigarette, this fifty-year-old with a smile of lead and gold leaves the old house rented to a toothless grandmother, near Avdiivka, to inspect one of his old howitzers buried by the snow on the edge of a wood. “Ukraine has exhausted its stock of Soviet ammunition, the caliber of which is different from that of NATO standard guns,” worries Kirik. The country depends more than ever on Western aid. »

FPV drones, a new danger

In the white hell of Donbass, Ukrainian soldiers today see their Western lifeline threatened. In Washington, the check for 61 billion US dollars intended for Kyiv remains pending negotiations between the White House and the Republicans. On the other side of the Atlantic, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described European arms deliveries to Ukraine planned for 2024 as “largely insufficient” and called on his counterparts to submit a precise list of their contribution by at the next European summit, scheduled for 1^er FEBRUARY.

On the Russian side, arms factories are running at full capacity and producing a new type of ammunition: FPV drones, for First Person Viewor “immersion piloting” in French.

These flying machines, piloted using a virtual reality headset and loaded with just over a kilo of explosives, are poised to transform the battlefield.

To counter this new threat, which became omnipresent during the fall, the thirty-year-old now forces her troops to leave their vehicles 5 km from their position, then to make the rest of the journey on foot. Enough to paralyze operations a little more. “This complicates logistics, especially in the event of a medical evacuation. Some wounded were stuck on the front line for 12 hours and suffered frostbite so severe that they had to be amputated,” she explains while an anti-aircraft battery spits a gust towards the sky.

300,000 drones per month

According to Ukrainian media, Russia produces around 300,000 FPV drones per month. That’s six times more than Ukraine. Moscow also claimed at the beginning of January to have trained an army of 3,500 FPV drone pilots in 2023, and should further increase the rate in 2024. “We must at all costs keep up the pace, because FPV drones have become crucial weapons », alerts Anatolii, commander of a Ukrainian unit specializing in this type of drone and currently deployed in Avdiivka.

“They only cost a few hundred dollars to produce and can, by lodging in the gaps, damage several million armored vehicles. It is partly because of them that we find ourselves in a military impasse. »

On the Ukrainian side, time is running out to get out of the rut. Each day that passes allows Russia to strengthen its positions, further complicating a new counter-offensive. Is it already too late? Some soldiers from Donbass are now convinced of this. “We need a ceasefire to allow us to rearm and train the next generation to return to battle. Ours gave everything she could, but she is exhausted. It will no longer advance,” says a young Ukrainian officer deployed around Bakhmut.

* The military asked us not to reveal their last names for security reasons.

Ukraine plans a large-scale mobilization

Will Ukraine find the resources necessary to wage a long-term war? Faced with the military impasse on the front line, the question torments the Kyiv general staff. The arrival of Western weapons capable of creating a decisive shock, such as the famous F-16 fighter planes, will take place over months, even years. Available munitions depend on the ability of Kyiv’s allies to transform their defense industries. However, these have so far shown serious ignition delays. The Ukrainian soldiers deployed on the front line, mobilized for almost two years, are exhausted.

“Our main concern is the absence of manpower,” confirms Timur Gulamov, a 27-year-old artillery commander we met in Kramatorsk, behind the Bakhmut front. “My men haven’t had leave for almost eight months. Some develop serious mental disorders, when they do not outright refuse to go and fight. And in the infantry, the losses are immense. » The Ukrainian executive is therefore working on a new mobilization law, which should make it possible to mobilize nearly 500,000 new soldiers. The first version of the text, submitted to Parliament at the end of December, was rejected on January 11. Certain provisions would be contrary to the Constitution.