Why Russia Has So Far, Failed To Win The Battle For Donbas

Initial Results from the Battle of Donbas and What It Portends for the War’s Next Phase – When Russia redeployed tens of thousands of armored troops from the environs north of Kyiv and Sumy last month to the northern shoulder of the Donbas front, there was concern that the added manpower would produce an armored breakthrough of Ukraine’s lines. However, after almost three weeks of fighting, the Ukrainian troops have held the line.

Russia’s failure to affect a breakthrough represents a noteworthy accomplishment for the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF). Whether that initial success can carry Ukraine to an ultimate victory will depend on how several key factors play out in the coming weeks and months. The outcome of both the Battle of Donbas and the Russo-Ukrainian War are very much still up in the air.

What Russia Thought Going In

Russian military authorities likely expected to achieve a breakthrough in the northern shoulder of Ukraine’s defenses in the Donbas by this point – and failed. The reason is that Ukrainian troops continue to exceed expectations on the ground and Russian troops underperform (from inadequate/poor tactical pre-war training). In practical terms, however, the UAF’s successful defense results from the elaborate defenses Kyiv had ordered in the years since 2014.

The defenses in the Donbas include concrete bunkers, mutually-reinforcing positions, interlocking fields of fire, anti-tank mines, and pre-sited artillery targets on likely Russian avenues of approach. These defensive works and schemes have inflicted significant harm to attacking Russian troops and have been primarily responsible for preventing any penetrations thus far. This successful defense, however, has not been cost-free.

Putin Strikes Back

Russia has been pounding the entirety of the 300-mile front with relentless bombardments of heavy artillery, rocket fire, and air attacks virtually nonstop. Putin’s forces have emphasized attacking points south of Izyum, Kramatorsk, Severdonetsk, and Popsnya, pouring incredibly intense volumes of fire on the defenders in these areas. Such attacks have thus far not caused the line to break, but it is crucial to understand the men under this bombardment are not immune to the cumulative effects of so many explosions.

The Impact of Battle in Donbas

One of the most enduring consequences of America’s two-decade war in Afghanistan and Iraq was the soldiers – reportedly numbering over 400,000 – that suffered traumatic brain injuries from too much exposure to the enemy’s grenade, rocket, and mortar fire. The trench warfare of World War I – similar to the Battle of Donbas – inflicted what was known as “shell shock” on the troops by relentless artillery bombardment. On either side of the line, many of the soldiers became mentally incapacitated after too much exposure to the explosions. It is unknowable at this time when – or whether – UAF defenders could succumb to the bombardment and break, but the pressures and stresses are real and significant.

Russian troops, too, are subject to Ukrainian artillery fire, but apparently in lower volumes, and thus cumulatively would seem to have less risk of breaking over “shell shock” effects. But even if Russia does eventually grind down the UAF defenses and capture the Donbas, they will be a spent force and be incapable of continuing further to either take Odesa on the Black Sea coast or strike north to capture Kharkiv. To entertain any possibility of taking either city, Putin will have to do what he has thus far refused to do: mobilize some percentage of his reserve forces.

Russia for Mass Mobilization?

As Russian military expert Michael Kofman has examined in detail, mobilizing the country for open war against Ukraine would be necessary to free up or create new fighting formations to continue the war in Ukraine. Doing so incurs considerable political costs for Putin. But without mobilization, Russia might not capture the Donbas and definitely would not be able to carry the war further.

Russian artillery firing. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Putin, therefore, is fast coming to a critical decision point: a) hope he can capture the Donbas without mobilization using the troops he has and then declaring victory and ending the war there, or b) conduct national mobilization and add tens of thousands more combat troops to force a breakthrough in the Donbas, and potentially add yet more troops later and then move on Odesa or Kharkiv.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, has choices of his own to make. Ukraine gets large quantities of increasingly central weapon systems from the West, including heavy artillery, tanks, and long-range air defense missiles. In time, it is possible – though far from certain – that the UAF could develop an offensive capacity with enough new gear and trained troops to switch from defense to offense and attempt to drive Russia from Ukrainian territory.

Russian Military Artillery Piece. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Suppose Zelensky tries to order an offensive before creating sufficient new units? In that case, however, Ukraine runs the risk of suffering large-scale casualties as the Russian offensives have thus far endured. Ukraine’s most significant advantages presently are the result of prepared defensive positions; moving to the offensive would draw them out into the open, making them vulnerable to Russian armor.

Bottom line: Ukraine has been successful thus far in blocking Russia’s advances in the Donbas, and they will have a solid chance to continue that trend. But it is an open question about how long Ukraine can continue suffering casualties from the heavy firepower Russia pours daily on the defenders. War is ultimately a contest of wills. It remains to be seen who has the stronger will in the Donbas. We also don’t know who can most effectively endure the most casualties and who breaks first. Right now, the war could tilt in either direction.

Now a 1945 Contributing Editor, Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army who deployed into combat zones four times. He is the author of “The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America.” Follow him @DanielLDavis1.

With respect I kind of agree with your statements but your conclusion is dodgy.

Nobody’s counted how many educated Russians have gotten their families out of Dodge. If Putin resorts to conscription to build the 600,000+ ground force needed to capture and hold Ukraine (never mind open up other fronts) it won’t be that intelligentsia getting the draft.

It’ll be the dirt poor towns away from the big cities getting offers of 500 bucks apiece to let their boys join the great adventure in Novorussiya... Those communities haven’t seen a bean of investment from Russia in decades but they have access to Russian state television and radio so are bombarded with approved propaganda morning noon and night with no access to alternative sources.

For years the West has thought North Korea’s propaganda mill is bad (some people there actually believe Mercedes cars are made in North Korea to a Kim genius’ specifications). It’s got nothing on Russia’s fake news.

The western MSM is biased as hell and peddles fake news a lot but we have access to alternative sources and most of us are smart enough to know when our own preferred news sources aren’t telling the full story. There is no concept of that in impoverished towns across Russia.

This isn’t speculation because we know already that convoys of “volunteers” are being sent west from places that not even Moscovites have heard of. These people live like the Amish not by choice but because they literally have no idea how theyve been left decades behind the big cities.

Russia’s elites and cosmopolitan intelligentsia have treated rural Russia and rural Ukraine and rural anywhere else in the old Soviet orbit as full of “untermenschen” fit only for farming and conscription for decades.

They don’t need westerntards to do it. They do it happily on their own.

Yes, that means they’ve played a fantastic rope-a-dope to the extent that many Georgians, Chechens, Russians and others, have set aside the utter destruction Russia visited on their countries in favour of a 500 buck bribe to join the army, alongside pushing out a propaganda message for two decades to the effect of “we didn’t do that to you; you did it to yourselves and the West is responsible”.

I’ve got two Uke refugees living with me right now. Well, I say Uke. They’re from Donbas, are ethnic Russians, speak Russian, were pro devolution for DPR.

I wouldn’t say they’re converted to Zelenskyy’s side but they both say as long as they have holes between their butt cheeks they ain’t returning to Donbas unless Putin’s army gets whipped all the way out of Ukraine.

That’s what I am hearing from educated Russians, not just from Ukraine but from Russia.

The pro war yahoos are the people Russia itself treats as “untermenschen”, and the TV pundits paid a fortune to lie to them.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.