Why Ukrainian Forces Are Holding Despite Intensified Russian Attacks

The Russians do not have the trained units combined with supporting armor and artillery to dislodge the well defended Ukrainian forces. 

And western observers do not see when they will. JL 

Marc Santora reports in the New York Times:

The pace of Russian operations continued to intensify, but Britain’s defense intelligence agency said that Kyiv was managing to broadly hold its defensive lines. Since Russia launched its invasion, its forces have rarely made swift gains; instead its advances have played out over months of grueling combat. They have fought for several months to take Bakhmut. Last summer, Ukraine abandoned Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk in the face of a grinding Russian onslaught, rather than risk encirclement of its forces. But Mr. Zelensky said recently that there would be no such retreat from Bakhmut.On the ground, Ukrainian forces on Friday battled advancing Russians in the pine forests near Kreminna, and held onto increasingly precarious defensive positions in the frozen trenches and battered buildings around the ruined city of Bakhmut, according to Ukrainian officials and military analysts. The pace of Russian operations continued to intensify, but Britain’s defense intelligence agency said that Kyiv was managing to broadly hold its defensive lines.

“It is quite difficult for our fighters, but they control the situation” in Kreminna, Serhiy Haidai, the head of the Luhansk regional military administration, said in a statement on Friday about Ukraine’s efforts to repel the Russian assault.

After drafting some 300,000 men last fall, Russia now has about 150,000 troops in Ukraine, analysts say, and could send in still more, but many of them are raw conscripts with little training or motivation. U.S. officials estimate that as many as 200,000 Russian fighters have been killed or wounded in the past year — more than the number the Kremlin initially assigned to the invasion force.

Since Russia launched its invasion, its forces have rarely made swift gains; instead its advances have played out over weeks and months of grueling combat. They have fought for several months to take Bakhmut, which Moscow sees as a jumping-off point for attacking the Ukrainian stronghold at Kramatorsk, a vital step toward seizing all of the Donbas, which Russia has illegally annexed, despite not fully controlling the region. In addition, Kreminna and Bakhmut both sit along important highways.

Russia continued to make slow progress in its effort to cut off Ukrainian troops defending Bakhmut, Britain’s defense intelligence agency said on Friday.

Last summer, Ukraine abandoned the cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk in the face of a grinding Russian onslaught, rather than risk encirclement of its forces. But Mr. Zelensky said recently that there would be no such retreat from Bakhmut.