Moscow is slowly implementing its strategy to take control of Donbass, between intense artillery shelling and long-range strikes on western Ukraine.
Russia claimed responsibility for firing a salvo of missiles at kyiv on Thursday, a provocative strike in the midst of a visit by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
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But on the 65th day of the war, the fighting is concentrated in the east, more particularly on a small perimeter of Sieverodonetsk, a salient in Ukrainian hands on the western flank of Donbass occupied by the Russians since 2014.
“The Russians have extended their initial effort April 19-23.
They grow methodically from the north and west”
of the city, analyzes, on Twitter, the American expert Jomini of the West.
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Very violent air, missile and artillery bombardments fell on the area from Rubizhine, and to the south on Lyssytchansk, to attempt an encirclement.
A little further south-west, the offensive also concentrated on Popasna, largely destroyed.
More generally in the Donbass, the front extends over nearly 100 kilometers and 70 deep.
But contrary to the first times of this war, Moscow forgot the great rapid movements to reconnect with the Soviet tradition of a crushing by artillery.
Less risky, the tactic is also much slower - it will require at least two to three months -, even if according to Michel Goya, Moscow has concentrated in the area
"a capacity to send 600,000 shells / day"
.
In the north, around Kharkiv, the situation is changing only slightly, while the Russian army is content to maintain its positions and bombard.
Small Ukrainian offensives seem to have failed.
In the Zaporizhia region, Russian pressure materializes in several small attacks, with minor gains, along the front line.
This new activity is the result of the virtual end of the fighting in Mariupol where the last Ukrainian forces are fighting in the Asovstal factory.
For the specialists, these fights intend especially for the moment to fix Ukrainian forces in the zone and to avoid their transfer further east.
In the future, “
they can however potentially threaten Zaporijjia”
, stresses Jomini of the West, or open new attacks against Mykolaiv or Kryvyi Rih.
In the rear, in Kherson, the only major city under Russian control, the Russian National Guard is struggling to establish order through arrests.
The Ukrainian government fears that Moscow will organize there, at the beginning of May, a referendum, like those organized in the Donbass to unite the oblast with Moscow.
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The fate of the weapons, very uncertain, will depend very much on the reserves while the two camps have embarked on a war of attrition.
Oryx blog notes that the Russians reportedly lost 587 armor in April.
A significant total, but less than the previous months, in particular because Russian logistics lines are shorter and better protected.
The Ukrainians have also acknowledged losses and are asking the allies for help.
In this arms race, the Russian air force is bombing stations, railway junctions and bridges in the west to curb the delivery of materials supplied by the West while Ukraine has launched raids on depots tankers in Russia.
