How Ukraine Is Inflicting More Casualties, Making Gains With Far Fewer Troops

Since mid-winter, Ukraine has been holding off Russian attacks and advancing in multiple sectors while using far fewer troops than it has in the past. 

The primary reason is the use of drones, which enable Ukrainian forces to see Russian troop and vehicle movements in advance and then decimate them. A key enabler of this strategy has been increasing staffing for drone units - which is also easier to do than reinforcing infantry - and spreading more of them across the front. JL

Ian Lovett reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Russian forces took less than 38 square miles during the first two weeks of April, their slowest rate of advance since beginning the offensive last summer, and Ukrainian forces have been able to win back territory. Russian forces are exhausted. Some have been fighting nonstop for over two years. Ukraine's reconnaissance drones—including many with thermal-vision cameras—scan for any movement along the line of contact, and attack drones pick off advancing Russian troops before they reach Ukrainian trenches, allowing Ukraine to hold territory with far fewer men than in previous wars. “Ukraine is holding down huge frontages of territory with shockingly few people.”

A train of Russian motorbikes snaked along a dirt path. A clutch of armored vehicles coursed across a field. Infantry sought cover under trees with budding leaves.

The Russian spring offensive is under way, Ukrainian military commanders say, as changing weather is hardening ground and increasing foliage.

The scenes from a Russian assault earlier this month, captured on aerial-drone videos by the 14th Brigade of Ukraine’s National Guard, show how Russia’s military is seeking to regain momentum after Kyiv’s forces put the brakes on their advances since the start of this year.

The brigade said it stopped the assault on April 17 near the eastern city of Pokrovsk, a key Russian target, destroying dozens of motorbikes and armored vehicles. Ukraine’s top military commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskiy, told a Ukrainian website in an interview published April 9 that Russian assault operations had doubled in the week before.

Key Ukrainian battlegrounds

Russian forces in Ukraine

Ukraine forces in Russia

Belarus

Russia

Sumy

Kyiv

Kupyansk

Ukraine

Chasiv Yar

Pokrovsk

Dnipro

Zaporizhzhia

Mariupol

Mol.

Kherson

Odesa

Sea of Azov

CRIMEA

100 miles

Black Sea

100 km

Note: As of April 23
Sources: Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project
Andrew Barnett/WSJ

Russia’s renewed assaults come as President Trump has increased pressure on the two sides to reach some kind of cease-fire—and raised the prospect that the U.S. might walk away from the conflict if they don’t, which could mean an end to military aid for Kyiv. The Kremlin on Monday announced a short cease-fire for a few days in early May, but Ukrainian officials said it was a propaganda ploy and unlikely to hold, like earlier truces unilaterally declared by Russia.

Ukrainian forces had managed to stabilize the front line in eastern Ukraine during the spring, according to Ukrainian soldiers in the area and analysts who scrutinize openly available data. After seizing hundreds of square miles a month during last fall’s offensive, Russian forces took less than 38 square miles during the first two weeks of April, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, their slowest rate of advance since beginning the offensive last summer. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces have been able to win back some territory the Russians seized in the fall. The question is whether Ukraine can continue to hold the line through the summer, when fighting usually intensifies. Russia has sought to portray further advances as inevitable, suggesting that the U.S. should try to get Kyiv to capitulate rather than continue to resist.

So far, the new spring assaults have yielded little territory and heavy Russian casualties, according to analysts and Ukrainian officials. But conditions will likely grow more difficult for Kyiv as the weather gets warmer.

 

We don’t expect the current stabilization to last long,” said one 37-year-old officer, who has been fighting since December in the area around Pokrovsk. “We’ve disrupted the enemy’s momentum, but we’re aware that they’re regrouping and preparing for the next phase of their offensive.” 

Ukrainian troops and analysts attribute the Russian slowdown to several factors. 

Russian forces are exhausted. Some Russian divisions involved in the assault on Pokrovsk—Moscow’s primary target in recent months—have been fighting nonstop for more than two years, said George Barros, an analyst with ISW.

 “The only way you got out was if you died,” Barros said of some divisions fighting in the Pokrovsk area.

Situation near Kupyansk

UKRAINE

Dvorichna

Area of detail

RUSSIAN FORCES

Kupyansk

Shevchenkove

Kyslivka

Borivs'ke

LUHANSK

REGION

Hlushkivka

KHARKIV REGION

Novoselivs'ke

5 miles

5 km

Note: As of April 23
Source: Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project
Andrew Barnett/WSJ

He said that the refusal to pause the offensive in Ukraine’s east has led to a host of problems for Moscow’s forces. Materiel and logistics degraded without time for maintenance and repair. New recruits replacing casualties often aren’t well trained or integrated into the unit, limiting their effectiveness. 

In addition, the Ukrainians have made some adjustments that have helped them fend off the Russians. Drones now make up the first line of defense. Reconnaissance drones—including many with thermal-vision cameras—scan for any movement along the line of contact, and attack drones pick off advancing Russian troops before they reach Ukrainian trenches, allowing Ukraine to hold territory with far fewer men than in previous wars. “Because of that innovation,” Barros said, “Ukraine is holding down huge frontages of territory with shockingly few people.”

While Pokrovsk has been Russia’s main target in recent months, Ukraine’s drone-first defensive strategy has now been implemented across the eastern front. 

In northeastern Ukraine, Russians are pushing across the Oskil River, in an effort to make another assault on the city of Kupyansk. In March, when around 500 Russian troops had made it across the river in boats and rafts, Ukraine sent the 15th Operational Assignment Brigade to help push them back. 

During the first two weeks, the battalion’s intelligence unit was frequently going in on foot to clear Russian troops from the outskirts of Kondrashchivka, a village 2½ miles west of the river. Since the area around the village was returned to Ukrainian control, however, drones have done most of the work. 

A battalion commander in the 15th Brigade, who goes by the call sign Korsar, said that drones now account for roughly 85% of the Russian casualties in the area. On a recent afternoon, he sat in the command post, watching live feeds from surveillance drones, which scoured the trees looking for Russian dugouts. Once they found one, they hammered the position with every kind of drone.

“It’s very rare when they actually make it to our positions and there’s gunfire,” said Korsar, who is 30 years old. “This month, there was only gunfire once.” 

However, holding the line primarily with drones is likely to get tougher in the coming months. Leaves are now returning to the trees in Ukraine, and within a month, they will block drones’ view of Russian positions below. In northeastern Ukraine, where tree lines are thicker than in the fields of the south, that will give advancing Russians far more cover than they have had in recent months.

In addition, the “mud season”—when the ground is sodden from winter rains, making it harder for vehicles to move—is also coming to an end, which may have encouraged Moscow to begin mechanized assaults again, after months of attacking mostly with small groups of infantry on foot. “They haven’t made much progress, and they’ve been suffering tremendous casualties,” Franz-Stefan Gady, a Vienna-based defense analyst said of the latest Russian assaults. “That’s really due to the Ukrainian defense system.”

Still, he said the Ukrainian systems were likely to come under growing strain in the months ahead.

 

Currently, Ukraine has plenty of ammunition for artillery and other weapons, but its stockpiles have been shrinking while fighting unending Russian attacks. In the next several months, he said, artillery from the U.S. will likely run out, with Republicans unlikely to approve a new aid package for Kyiv. Though Europe will try to close the gap, Gady said, they don’t produce enough ammunition of their own to do so entirely.

Once that happens, Ukrainians will have to reduce their fire rate, he said, which will make it difficult for Ukraine to hold the front line with so few men, even if Kyiv continues to increase drone production. 

“I don’t expect any dramatic changes or a collapse of the front line…but overall the trends are not positive for Ukraine,” Gady said. “At some point drone strikes can’t replace the lack of infantry.”