Russia regains the initiative and attacks in the northeast and east. Ukraine is moving to strategic defense, reorganizing and having to manage scarce resources. What is the situation and what is needed?
In addition to ongoing major Russian attacks at Avdiivka, Russia is now making several smaller attempted advances. Russia is thus regaining the initiative on the front in the northeast and east. The territorial gains achieved so far remain small.
In the northeast, Russia attacks in the direction of Kupyansk. Russian troops are also trying to advance west of Kreminna, north and south of Siversk, on a broad front west of Bakhmut and southwest of Mariinka.
The focus of the Russian attacks appears to be from Bakhmut to the west and near Avdiivka. North of Avdiivka, Russia advanced its lines by several hundred meters, but with very high losses of material and personnel.
On the southern front, Russia is primarily carrying out air strikes and drone attacks on Ukrainian positions, both at Robotyne and on the Ukrainian bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnieper northeast of Kherson.
Russian glide bombs in particular, often retrofitted with simple wings and Glonass navigation, are causing problems for Ukraine. For Russia, the glide bombs are cheap, accurate and have more explosive power than artillery. Ukraine has so far no remedy against it.
Simultaneously with the attacks on the front, Russia is intensifying the shelling of cities close to the front such as Kherson, Nikopol, Bilohorivka, etc. with artillery, rocket artillery and glide bombs in order to specifically terrorize the civilian population.
Ukraine switched to defense mode. However, in this phase, the Ukrainian armed forces no longer seem to be concerned with unconditionally holding their positions, but rather with delaying battles.
Ukrainian units now have more freedom to decide, depending on the situation, how to proceed with the aim of maximizing the attrition of Russian forces. This leads to occasional Russian territorial gains but at the same time to extremely high losses on the Russian side.
Ukraine needs more artillery ammunition. This problem has been known for a long time. On some sections of the front, Ukraine can only conduct artillery battles to a very limited extent and otherwise has to accept fire from established positions.
Ukraine has too many breakdowns of howitzers and armored vehicles because maintenance and repairs are too far away and spare parts and often construction plans are missing.
Repair and maintenance for artillery, armored vehicles and main battle tanks must be quickly brought closer to the front. Western manufacturers should also share their construction plans with Ukraine and enable Ukraine to produce its own spare parts.
Ukraine still needs air defense and drone defense, especially cheaper methods of defending against masses of cheap Russian drones. This also includes upgrading existing battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles with radars and drone defense systems.
Ukraine needs security of supply of components for the rapidly growing Ukrainian drone production as well as help in the rapid expansion of ammunition and weapons production within Ukraine.
The situation is difficult for the armed forces of Ukraine, especially because of a lack of resources such as artillery ammunition, spare parts and quick repair options. The situation could improve with better drone defense, more drones and operational F-16s.
It would help Ukraine greatly if the enforcement of sanctions against Russia were improved and the West did a better job of preventing the supply of dual-use goods, machine tools and armaments to Russia.
While Russia was only able to produce around 20-30 Kalibr, X-22 and X-555 cruise missiles per month due to technological sanctions, for example, it has now increased production again to 100-120 per month.
Unfortunately, one has to assume that Russia has saved up the cruise missiles and drones it has produced in order to hit Kyiv in particular, but also other cities in Ukraine, with waves of attacks at Christmas, at the turn of the year and in the coldest months of January and February.
Ukraine needs more and constant supplies of long-range precision weapons. This also includes Taurus, GLSDB and ATACMS with monoblock warheads.
The Russian armed forces are also experiencing significant difficulties along the front line. The current attempted advances lead primarily to very high Russian losses and destroyed Ukrainian towns, but do not change the war strategically.
Talk of Ukraine's "futility" or "defeat" is exaggerated in view of the real military events.
However, the difficulties in Ukraine and, above all, the domestic political blockade in the USA are leading to premature victory rhetoric and overly self-confident propaganda on the Russian side.
Systematic, extensive support for Ukraine, rapid improvement of the industrial base and targeted use of Western technologies in order to bring Ukraine into a position of superiority in the south is still the necessary approach.
The alternative to systematic, industrial and more extensive support for Ukraine would be a protracted war of slow destruction of Ukraine starting from the east.
Ukraine's partners should finally move away from the "support as long as necessary" formula, frustrate Russian ambitions and put Ukraine in a stronger position to open a path to real solutions.
Nico Lange is a senior advisor at GLOBSEC and currently working mainly on Russia’s war against Ukraine. He is a Senior Fellow at the Munich Security Conference. Lange teaches at the Chair of War Studies at the University of Potsdam, Germany.
Nico Lange was Chief of Staff at the Federal Ministry of Defense of Germany from 2019 to 2022.
Before being appointed to the MoD, he was Deputy General Manager of the CDU Deutschlands and Director of Strategic Planning and International Politics at CDU Headquarters.
Lange served as State Commissioner for Innovation and Strategy to the State Government of Saarland, Director of the USA office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Washington D.C, and Deputy
Director for political consulting at Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung headquarters in Berlin.
Nico Lange was director of the Ukraine office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Kyiv from 2006-2012.
He was awarded a Robert Bosch Fellowship in St. Petersburg, Russia from 2003-2006. Lange speaks fluent Ukrainian and Russian.
Nico Lange served in the German Armed Forces from 1993-2000.
