With western tanks yet to arrive, invaders may be in a better position in early spring than Ukrainian defenders
the conflict had settled into “positional warfare” that had given the Russians “the opportunity to regain the initiative if they choose and to raise the bar for future Ukrainian counteroffensives even if they do not”.
Significantly it has come at a point when Russian air attacks on Ukraine’s electricity grid have slowed, which may suggest Gen Valery Gerasimov’s command has brought about a change of tack to focus on a more conventional military approach rather than to try – and fail – to terrorise civilians from the skies. It is too early to be certain, but it looks increasingly likely the power network will not collapse this winter.
Some of this messaging is, of course, political, as Ukraine shifts its effort in the never-ending lobbying campaign for western arms, from tanks to. And while Russia’s pace of progress around Bakhmut has improved, including finally capturing the salt mine town of Soledar, eight miles to the north-west, it has cost thousands of Russian lives, with ex-prisoners being sent over the top into exposed positions.
There is also anxiety in political circles about how long the existing frontline troops in Ukraine’s military – however committed they have been – can be asked to carry on fighting without a long break. A concern about theamong Ukrainian soldiers “as a result of battlefield stress” was raised last month by the UK Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith after he visited a military hospital near Kharkiv.
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