The fighting in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievjerodonetsk has been going on for weeks now. Russia has now taken over 80 percent of the city, mainly thanks to heavy and sustained artillery fire. Sievjerodonetsk is now a dead city, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyj. There are hardly any civilians left there and entire districts have been completely destroyed.
But Ukraine isn’t giving up on the city – for a very specific reason, as the New York Times reports. Accordingly, behind the bitter fighting of the Ukrainian soldiers is a simple and dangerous strategy: the Ukrainians are trying to involve the Russian armed forces in street fighting.
Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podoliak said the same to NYT: “The Russians fight badly in the streets. There it is possible for us to move freely and seek shelter. This minimizes the losses. We can hold out there for a long time and in turn inflict losses on the Russians.”
These guerrilla tactics had already worked in the defense of Kyiv early in the war. At that time, the Ukrainians in the suburbs – such as Irpin – put up massive resistance, and the Russians had to retreat. Gustav Gressel, Ukraine expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, says to the Swiss newspaper Blick: “If the Ukrainians manage to involve them in a street fight, the probability increases that the Russians will suffer losses that they have can not afford.”
So far, the Ukrainians have continued to be successful: “It’s getting more difficult, but our soldiers are stopping the enemy on three sides. They protect Sieverodonetsk and do not allow any advance to Lysychansk,” wrote the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Haiday, on Wednesday in his Telegram news channel blog.
And further: “The enemy is weaker in street fighting, so he opens artillery fire, which destroys our houses.”
So it is precisely this inferiority to artillery attacks that is why Ukraine is using the street fighting strategy – or rather has to use it. Because according to their own statements, they are running out of heavy weapons. “To date, we have about ten percent of what Ukraine said it needs,” Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maljar said on Ukrainian television on Tuesday. Russia is infinitely superior in armament and number of soldiers. “No matter how Ukraine tries, no matter how professional our army is, we will not be able to win this war without the help of partners.”
