These are harrowing images that reached us from Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. The two cities in the east of the Ukraine, which are in the immediate vicinity, were captured by Russian troops at the end of June and the beginning of July after weeks of fighting.
Both sides are silent on how many people died in the fighting. Recently there was talk of 100-200 dead and up to 800 wounded on the Ukrainian side – per day. Why, one has to ask, did the Ukrainian general staff defend Severodonetsk in particular until the city lay in ruins and thousands died? At first glance, this tactic seems downright suicidal.
In the first phase of the war in February and March, the Ukrainians deliberately retreated from the superior firepower of the Russian army, pulled the attackers into space, then attacked their overstretched supply lines. They thus delayed the advance and finally stopped it. So why now this clinging to cities whose symbolic meaning is not remotely equal to Kiev or Mariupol?
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Sönke Neitzel has been a professor of military and cultural history of violence at the University of Potsdam since 2015. Before that, he taught at the University of Glasgow and the London School of Economics, among others.
The Ukrainian army is inferior to Russian artillery by a ratio of 1:9 to 1:10. In addition, it has significantly less ammunition at its disposal, since Russian special forces were already destroying Ukrainian ammunition depots in a targeted manner before February 24 and the production facilities have also been shut down since the outbreak of war. In Europe, there is only one small factory in the Czech Republic that manufactures bullets of the old Soviet caliber 152mm. In addition, the Russians have an overwhelming majority of long-range guns and rocket launchers. The 15cm howitzers supplied by the United States have so far not been able to make up for this disadvantage, partly because they did not come with their most powerful ammunition and are also not as mobile as a self-propelled howitzer.
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It is still unclear what the consequences of the bitter fighting are. Is Russia’s ability to attack flagging, or is the backbone of the Ukrainian army gradually being broken as it gradually loses its well-trained units? We do not know it. The Ukrainian general staff is extraordinarily reluctant to give specific casualty figures, even when it comes to NATO and the German armed forces. Those of the Russians can only be guessed at anyway.
Until that is achieved, Ukrainians are forced to fight in their cities, despite all the destruction that entails. Of course, this also means that Ukraine is currently a long way from counter-offensives, even recapturing Crimea, despite all the rhetoric of President Zelenskiy. It’s about holding out, stopping the Russian advance. In this sense, winning means not losing.
And for the moment it would probably be wise to quickly replenish the dwindled ammunition stocks – also in order to be able to continue to supply the Ukraine. But the industry has been waiting for decisions from the federal government for months. Of course, the responsible authorities remain calm and remain in their bureaucratic peacekeeping business. There is no sign of any particular rush. Will the turning point of a distant day also reach you?
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