Russian forces, which have advanced no less than 200 square kilometers in the month of July alone[1], have reclaimed many Ukrainian villages this past month.* The village, Klishchiivka, for instance, recently fell. Ukrainians had reclaimed that village from Russia almost a year after Russia’s initial thrust into Ukraine at the launch of its full-scale invasion on February 24nd, 2022.
Most recently, the village, Vesele, fell. Vesele, which is located within the agglomeration of tiny settlements contained within the area stretching from Ochertyne to Netailove, is located within the so-called “Avdiivka” direction. It is also called the “Pokrovsk” direction. The naming, much like the shift in the territorial stalemate in the Ukraine war, has now started to undergo a transformation of sorts. Previously, ‘directions’ in Russia’s more than five axes of advance throughout eastern Ukraine were named according to the name of the last largest stronghold. In Bakhmut, for instance, villages such as Chasiv Yar or Klishchiivka, for instance, were attributed to the ‘Bakhmut-Artemovsk’ direction. The situation in the ‘Avdiivka’ direction, however, has changed.
The nomenclature of war reporting now favors the largest stronghold on the horizon. In the ‘Avdiivka’ direction, Pokrovsk, which is supposed to be Ukraine’s last largest fortified defensive belt before the Dnipro, now carries the name for the entire direction. The shift from the last fall to the next largest challenge indicates the degree to which the battlefield has shifted from the past to the future. Reporting on the ‘Pokrovsk’ direction is all anticipatory. The vast majority of war report expect Russia to breakthrough to the Dnipro well before Winter. There is reason to believe these reporters are right.
In the more than 200 square kilometers Russia reclaimed in the month of July, 74 square kilometers were in the aftermath of the fall of Avdiivka towards Pokrovsk. More than eight villages fell: Yasnobrodovka, Novoselovka Pervaya, Evgenovka, Voskhod, Lozovatskoye, Progress, Volchye, and Timofeevka. Furthermore, Ukraine has not been able to Surovikinize its defensive lines. It is predicted that Russia will overcome the non-Surovikinized defensive belt at Pokrovsk.
There are, however, limited exceptions. The Washington Post recently published an article detailing how the heat from the height of summer may be playing a role in shifting landscape of Ukraine’s battlefields. Entitled, “Russia, refocusing on Donetsk, takes more Ukrainian land,” the article cites the unprecedented heat as one of the reasons for the failures of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Avdiivka direction. However, it does not explain why the heat influences Ukrainians, while it apparently has little to no effect on Russians. Can the heat really be responsible for more than 74 square kilometers of Russian advances in a single direction?
The Post‘s article stands in contrast to a far more radical exception published by the New York Times. On July 9th, the Times published an article entitled, “U.S. Officials Say Russia Is Unlikely to Take Much More Ukrainian Territory.” While the Times, whose history of reporting on the Ukraine war is one of the more complicated, has clearly missed the mark in eastern Donetsk, Russia is taking much more Ukrainian territory, indicating a major change in the dynamics of the battlefield. It indicates just how radically detached from the developments on the ground ‘U.S. Officials,’ whose names the Times regularly omits, are.
This major change in naming corresponds to a shift in territory, from a positive territorial stalemate for Russia to clearly identifiable Russian gains. To illustrate exactly what is meant by positive territorial stalemate, a map published by Germany’s Bild sufficies. Entitled, “Ukraine darf nicht zurückschießen,” the map demarcates three different types of territory. Territory conquered by Russia is marked in light purple as ‘erobert.’ Territories such as Crimea or the north-eastern sector of the Donbas Russia occupied prior to its full-scale invasion is marked in striped pink behind a white background as ‘besetzt/annektiert’. These territories are less relevant than the ones marked for Ukraine. The map shows how Ukraine managed to expel Russian forces before the beginning of its 2023 Winter offensive, which is its most current offensive.
Since Russia’s gains previously only amounted to the reclamation of Ukrainian reclamations in the Donbas, Russia’s advances positively eroded the arising territorial stalemate without tipping the balance in its favor with new gains. But now Ukraine’s ‘befreit’ territories in the Donbas have been almost completely reclaimed by Russia.
In terms of the Donbas sector of the front, Russia’s positive territorial stalemate is all but eliminated with its most recent gains from July. These gains stand in contrast to those in Kharkiv where Ukrainian forces held Russians back temporarily before the beginning of the most recent NATO summit. Should Russia reclaim the territory lost in the Kharkiv region, that sector of the front would also eliminate Russia’s positive territorial stalemate.
It is unlikely that Russia will be able to reclaim the territory around Kyiv but the territory to the west of the Dnipro is possible for two reasons. Ukraine’s withdrawal from Nestryha and Krinki, two of the most inglorious Ukrainian offensives on the Dnipro, demonstrates Ukraine is incapable of prolonged, successful cross-Dnipro operations. Without the ability to counterattack Russian forces on the bank opposite its own controlled territory, there is less reason to believe Ukraine is in a position to defend against a cross-Dnipro operation by the Russians.
With these new changes in the territorial dynamics on Ukraine’s battlefield, the territorial stalemate is coming to an end, representing a new phase in the war. The new phase in the war brings to a close Ukraine’s expulsion of Russians from its territory during the past two years. Since Russia’s seizure of Avdiivka at the beginning of the year, Russia’s effective implementation of a military advantage from its strategic initiative–a result of its success at the battle of Bakhmut-Artemovsk–has effectively put an end to Ukrainian offense. In the newest phase of the war, Ukraine cannot but defend against new Russian territorial gains and advances.
The end of the territorial stalemate also comes at a time when Russia’s internal security forces, which have begun to calculate the extensive damage endemic Russian corruption has caused to not only to Russia’s armed forces but its Defense Industrial Base during the past two years of the Ukraine war, have begun to arrest many high ranking figures in or around the Russian military. The effect of the new purge against Russia’s armed forces have covered the following people in quick succession: 1. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who was removed from office; 2. First Deputy Defense Minister Ruslan; Tsalikov – removed from office; 3. Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, who was removed from office and arrested; 4. Deputy Defense Minister, Colonel General Yuri Sadovenko, who was removed from office; 5. Deputy Defense Minister Tatyana Shevtsova who was removed from office; Deputy Defense Minister, retired Army General Nikolai Pankov who was removed from office; 7. Deputy Defense Minister, Army General Pavel Popov who was removed from office; 8. And the Deputy Defense Minister himself, Army General Dmitry Bulgakov who removed from office and arrested. These removals and arrests underscore the intensified struggle within the Russian armed forces both over the legacy of failure in the early years of the Ukraine war and its consequences for high ranking military officials.
Amidst the purge, new appointments are seeking to streamline Russia’s heavily sanctioned DIB to ensure its logistics cover Russia’s losses. The end of the territorial stalemate therefore comes at a critical juncture in Russia’s DIB. Whether or not Russia transforms it DIB to sustain to cover Russia’s losses is one of the new factors in the newest phase of Ukraine’s war. It is likely that only a sector by sector basis will Russia be able to streamline its DIB with varying success.
In terms of personnel, Russia’s efforts at recruitment appear to have climaxed. Russia’s most recent decision to double the ‘signing bonus’ for new volunteers indicates that its efforts at recruitment have peaked. A significant political factor for Russia in the newest phase of the Ukraine war is whether or not its problems with personnel result in a new mobilization, a decision likely to cause disruption to internal security on a scale equivalent to or exceeding that of the last mobilization when no less than 300,000 Russians fled the country.
On July 16th, 2024, the RAND corporation assessed that Russia’s challenge with recruitment comes from the military’s own treatment of soldiers. In a report entitled, “Russia’s Ability to Recruit and Retain Military Personnel,” the authors of the study noted how “[images] and stories from occupied Ukraine paint a bleak picture of indifference and cruelty to Russian soldiers by their own command.” The new report explored the effects the Russian military’s culture has on both recruitment as well as retention.
The study concluded that both are trending downward. It attributed much of slope in the curve to severe casualties and “a brutal command style,” at a time when the Russian military has reached the grim milestone of having sustained “more casualties in 18 months of war in Ukraine than in an entire decade in Afghanistan or during two campaigns in Chechnya.”
References
[1] – [“روسيا تسيطر على 200 كلم مربع من أراضي أوكرانيا بشهر واحد”, Al-Arabiya, July 31st, 2024]
* The Ukrainian blogger, @War_Mapper (i.e., 1819130516223742408), recently posted a tweet stating that the more accurate calculation of lost Ukrainian territory during the month of July is 17.72% of Ukraine, a positive by 0.03%. The Ukrainian blogger approximates the actual amount to be less than 200km². The blogger estimates the amount to be at 177km². It is likely that Al-Arabiya’s calculation is a slight exaggeration.