A decisive battle for Donbass awaits us

On March 29, 2022, Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu announced the end of the first stage of the special military operation in Ukraine and explained that the main attention and main efforts of the Russian Federation army will be focused on achieving the main goal – the liberation of Donbass. The RUSSTRAT Institute has already summed up the results of the first stage of the special operation. Now its second phase begins and the battle for Donbass will be its decisive part, which will largely determine the future of those territory that is known today as Ukraine and of Russia.

The statement made by Deputy Defence Minister Aleksandr Fomin on March 29 that the Russian army would drastically reduce the fighting in the Kiev and Chernigov directions caused a lot of noise in Russian society. Now the Ukrainian side confirms that the Russian army is withdrawing from Kiev region and parts of the Chernigov one that border Belarus and these units are being relocated to Sumy and Kharkov regions.

Here it is worth recalling again the words of Russian President Vladimir Putin that there is no intention of the occupation of Ukraine during the special operation. With its daring landing at Gostomel airport and the threat of a naval landing near Odessa, the Russian army managed to shackle the actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In general, it was thanks to such a "manoeuvre war" of the first stage of the special operation that the UAF was deprived of exits to the border of the Russian Federation and could not concentrate forces in one single direction for a counterattack.

In less than a month, the military infrastructure and industry of Ukraine was almost completely destroyed, which is confirmed by the Ukrainian side. The losses of the UAF amounted to 30,000 people, 65% in armoured vehicles, 40% in artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, 62% in aviation.

The Russian army did all this being in a numerical minority, since according to the calculations of various specialists and statements of Ukrainian officials, the grouping of the Russian army was about 150,000 people, against 250,000 soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and 50,000 fighters of the National Guard of Ukraine, and this is not counting border guards and special forces of other departments. In addition, the Commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny said that from February 24 to February 26, another 100,000 people were mobilised in Ukraine, and now the second wave of mobilisation is underway.

Of course, the Russian military had an advantage in the air and missile systems that covered the entire territory of Ukraine, but it is obvious that the size of the Russian group is not enough to fully control the previously occupied territory. Let me remind you that the length of the Russian-Ukrainian border alone is 3,000 kilometres.

Based on the classical concepts of warfare, the attackers should have a three-fold advantage over the defenders, in this case the situation looks almost the opposite.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the Russian military is now being relocated in order to surround the UAF grouping in Donbass, which at the beginning of the operation numbered about 70,000 people. The liberation of Donbass is one of the main goals of Russia's special operation in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian side also understands this perfectly well, and therefore it is transferring soldiers and equipment to Dnepropetrovsk and forming a fortified area in Pavlograd. It did not have time to form a new line of defence in the Kramatorsk-Slavyansk agglomeration, so it uses the larger city of Pavlograd, where it can hide behind high-rise and dense residential buildings. Accordingly, this will be a new line of defence and a springboard for unblocking the UAF grouping in Donbass.

Foreign mercenaries and PMCs, who were paid for by Ukrainian oligarchs, are also being sent there, since they also understand that this is one of the few chances to retain the right to their property in Ukraine. According to information from Ukrainian sources, a total of 45,000 fighters have already been transferred to Dnepropetrovsk.

Thus, taking into account the losses suffered by Ukraine, at least 90,000-95,000 people can participate directly in the battle for Donbass. It is quite difficult to assess the grouping of Russian troops in this direction, since there was no withdrawal of forces in the districts of Kharkov and Nikolaev, and significant forces were also involved in the encirclement and storming of Mariupol.

However, the forces of the DPR and LPR are already beating the Donbass group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces head-on, in the area of Maryinka, Avdeevka, Severodonetsk and Rubezhnoye, we must pay tribute to the fighters of the republics, as they break through the enemy's defences, which have been strengthening for 8 years. Given these units, it can be assumed that our side has a small advantage that may be lost, because in a week the UAF will be able to transfer all remaining reserves from Kiev to Dnepropetrovsk.

At the same time, it should be borne in mind that those very conditional 160 kilometres that need to be traversed in a straight line to close the encirclement ring, for example, from Izyum to Ugledar, are mostly steppe, without large cities. The distance of Pavlograd from the line of probable encirclement of the UAF in Donbass is approximately 100 kilometres. Thus, all this increases the chances of the Russian Aerospace Forces in detecting and destroying the enemy, if it opts for deblocking with a large group of equipment.

From this we can conclude that the currently available strategic initiative of the Russian side and the operational situation allows us to talk about a great chance of success in surrounding the UAF grouping in Donbass. Even if the UAF manages to slip out of the cauldron in the spirit of the 2015 Debaltsevo operation, the task of liberating the republics of Donbass and reaching their administrative borders will be completed.

The next fortified area of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the city of Pavlodar, is located about 60 kilometres from the border of the DPR, which will not allow them to conduct even effective shelling of the positions of the Russian army and the republics of Donbass that have reached the border, not to mention fully-fledged counterattacks.

The further continuation of hostilities will depend on the decisions of the political leadership of Ukraine to conclude a peace agreement with Russia.

Of course, there is pressure on Ukraine. As the Times writes, Britain recommends that Ukraine not conclude an agreement with Russia. According to the newspaper, London is concerned about the willingness of Washington, Paris and Berlin to push Kiev to make significant concessions to Moscow.

As is indicated in the RUSSTRAT article "Russia is forming a new world order", the United States has already fulfilled the predicted minimum program, dragging Russia into the conflict in Ukraine and worsening the situation in Europe. The next hot spot for the United States is Taiwan, and therefore they will not warm up the situation to a third world war, for the same reason they did not approve Poland's initiative to introduce its armed forces into Ukraine.

Europe is most interested in the cessation of hostilities in Ukraine. The sanctions imposed against Russia are hitting its economy, the head of the German trade unions openly warns of a global crisis due to the situation in Ukraine, and tough sanctions need to be curtailed. European politicians declare a possible shortage of food, which is fraught with a social explosion, they need to negotiate food supplies.

Despite all the military and technical Western support for Ukraine, objective reality suggests that it needs a truce. Missile strikes on Ukrainian oil storage facilities will affect the fuel shortage in the coming days. In addition, 86% of enterprises Ukraine have stopped their work, 40% do not pay salaries, 30% do not pay suppliers, the economy is paralysed. Farmers do not want to start sowing, fearing that their crops may be destroyed as a result of hostilities and will not be compensated in any way.

Every war is also an organised rear, so logistical support in Ukraine is very weak, old stocks are running out, and the situation is clearly visible on empty shelves in Kiev stores. In some places, shops are starting to sell humanitarian aid, which was supposed to be distributed for free. All this, coupled with the loss of the most combat-ready units and pressure from Western representatives, should push the Ukrainian leadership to conclude peace agreements with Russia.

It is already necessary to state that the proposals of the Ukrainian side, voiced during the negotiations in Istanbul on March 29 in the form of a neutral, nuclear-free status and a ban on the presence of foreign military bases and foreign troops on its territory, look like a big concession compared to the position declared before the start of the special operation. Yes, after the start of the special operation, this concession is no longer enough, but this is a serious step by Ukraine in realising the changed reality.

With access to the administrative borders of the DPR and the LPR, the second phase of the Russian special operation will be over and the logic of the peace agreements will become obvious also to Russian society. Once again, I will draw the reader's attention to the fact that the Russian grouping is inferior in number to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the further seizure of the territory of Ukraine directly depends on its quantitative component.

Thus, if someone hoped that this contingent of Russian troops would take the whole of Ukraine or at least reach Lvov, then they were very wrong. Without a fully-fledged mobilisation, it is practically impossible for Russia to do this, and this will be a completely different military-political reality for our country, with vague prospects, given the need to invest resources in the occupied territories.

Summarising all of the above, we can say that the decisive battle for Donbass will begin very soon. Of course, with its end, all hostilities on the territory of Ukraine are unlikely to stop, since nationalist groups are little controlled by Kiev, but Ukraine's offensive potential will be broken and nothing will change strategically.

For Ukraine, Russia and Western countries, a new stage of geopolitical reality will begin, with an actual reassessment of the balance of power in the world.