Russian attacks predicted as anniversary of invasion looms

Volodymr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, last week declared Russia’s long-awaited spring offensive had begun. And Kyiv is bracing for something big around the first anniversary of the invasion on February 24.

“This is a country obsessed by dates,” said Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of UKraine’s National Security and Defence Council last week.

What is certain is that after months of stalemate, Vladimir Putin’s army is on the move again.

In the past few weeks they have attacked along the southern front in the Zaporizhzhia region, in the south-eastern Donetsk region town of Vuhledar, and along the forested front line in Luhansk region. What no one yet knows is which is the main threat.

The short odds are on the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Andriy Chernyak, of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (GUR), said on February 1 that Putin had given the order to capture all of Donbas by March.

In central Donetsk, the battle for Bakhmut feels like the biggest danger. For half a year, Wagner mercenaries died in their hundreds, if not thousands, in doomed assaults on the city.

But over the past month, the sheer volume of Russian manpower has begun to produce results. Ukraine has been forced into tactical withdrawals, including from the town of Soledar.

Of three supply roads to Bakhmut, one has been cut, another is under constant fire, and a third is open — but is being also targeted by Russian artillery. Zelensky last week insisted that “no one will surrender Bakhmut”.

But among many people on the ground, there is a feeling Ukraine will eventually have to withdraw to a new line of defence — as it did when retreating from Sievierodonetsk last summer. The small town of Chasiv Yar, the last stop before Bakhmut itself, is rapidly emptying as residents flee before it too becomes a battlefield.

It would be a bitter blow to Ukraine. But even capturing Bakhmut would not necessarily lead to a breakthrough, officials in Donbas say.

​There is no sense of panic amongst the soldiers or civilians in the area — just anticipation that the battle may have to move to a new line, where the dogged defence will continue.

“There is no other way out,” said a local official. “The only way Putin will stop is if he is defeated.”

However, Bakhmut, which has drawn in vast numbers of Ukrainian troops, tanks, and other resources, may prove a diversion. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US defence think-tank, predicts Russia’s main offensive will come further north in Luhansk, near the towns of Svatove and Kreminna. Those key junctions are in Russian hands, but have been the objective of a grinding Ukrainian advance since the autumn.

A strike here might seek to catch the Ukrainians off-balance in a less heavily defended area. A Ukrainian officer based in Kharkiv said intelligence showed the Russians were “getting ready” for a renewed offensive.

In an assessment that overlaps with the ISW’s prediction, he said they would probably attack from the east.

The first objective of that push would be to push the Ukrainians back from the critical supply lines.

They would then seek to cut the highway between Kharkiv and Izyum to block Ukrainian lines of supply to Donbas, he said.

There are also plenty of options outside Donbas. General Valeriy Zaluzhny, the chief of the Ukrainian military, warned before Christmas that the Russians could try to strike Kyiv from Belarus, as they did last February.

And the Ukrainian officer in Kharkiv said he would not be surprised to see a strike further north straight across the border, perhaps in the Sumy region.

But the wild card is in the south, said Kirill Mikhailov, an independent military researcher based in Kyiv.

“I don’t think they have the resources to do an offensive on all fronts. But they’ve now got enough mobilised men to use them to hold the front lines, and concentrate their most experienced troops for a offensive in one area,” he said.

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