For the Last week, shiny Russian tanks rolled down Tverskaya Street, Moscow’s main thoroughfare. Thousands of troops marched through Red Square under Soviet flags as fighter jets buzzed above the city. All were preparing for the parade on May 9, the annual celebration of Russia’s victory in World War II. Vladimir Putin described his barbaric war against Ukraine as a continuation of the Soviet war against Nazi Germany.
The VE Day parade had been billed as a pivotal moment in the war, a military showcase that Mr Putin could use as a substitute for success on the battlefield – or, alternatively, as a time to declare he is mobilizing reservists across the country to redouble their efforts. war effort. In this case, he made no big announcement.
But as the world waited to hear what Mr Putin would say, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian President, managed to eclipse him from the stage. Mr. Zelensky, a former actor and perfect communicator, orchestrated a political day of resistance and solidarity. Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, arrived in Kyiv, where he took part in an online G7 meeting with Mr. Zelensky as guest of honour. The group issued a statement declaring its resolution that “President Putin must not win his war against Ukraine”, saying he owed it to “the memory of all those who fought for freedom during the second war world”.
Bärbel Bas, speaker of the German parliament, also showed up in kyiv. Bono and Edge of U2 performed with Ukrainian musicians in a subway station used as a bomb shelter. Jill Biden, the wife of Joe Biden, the US President, made an unexpected appearance in western Ukraine alongside Olena Zelensky, Mr Zelensky’s wife.
As for Mr. Zelensky, he released one of his trademark videos, this time in black and white in front of a building destroyed by Russian missiles. The day before, Russian forces had shelled a school in the east, killing 60 of the approximately 90 people taking refuge there. “Darkness has returned to Ukraine, and it is black and white again,” Mr Zelensky said, wearing a T-shirt that read “I am Ukrainian”. “Evil has returned, in a different uniform, under different slogans, but with the same purpose.”
Russia’s war itself was planned as a parade, a lightning march to kyiv that was supposed to have been completed in 72 hours. But 74 days later, it has become a display of military failure. Nothing happened as planned. A map captured from Russian troops by Ukrainian forces shows a red line that Russian tanks were supposed to follow to the capital. But the 28-page map dates from 1987, says Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security Council. A junction he was pointing to was long gone. The Russians took a wrong turn and got bogged down in Bucha, a middle-class suburb, where they committed a host of war crimes.
If Russian leaders thought such violence would break the resolve of Ukrainians, they were wrong. Russian-speaking towns in eastern Ukraine have become strongholds of resistance. In Mariupol, a port city razed by Russia (and where Russian propagandists plan to hold a Victory Day parade on May 9), Ukrainian fighters from a semi-independent unit called the Azov Battalion continue to hold out in tunnels under the giant Azovstal steelworks. On May 8, using Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet system, they managed to hold a press conference via Zoom from their bunkers, even as Russian forces shelled the factory. “We showed what is impossible, and the impossible has become routine for us,” said Ilya Samoilenko, one of Azov’s fighters. “Our message is: let’s not waste our efforts.
Despite all its blunders, Russia has taken control of a land corridor that connects Crimea, the peninsula it seized from Ukraine in 2014, with its own territory. Whereas before the war it occupied about a third of the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine, it now controls about 80%. But his offensive to capture the rest advances at a snail’s pace. The fiercest fighting has been around the town of Izyum, the northern tip of a pincer that Russia hopes to close around a Ukrainian-held salient. But the Ukrainian forces are entrenched, in trenches and bunkers, mitigating the impact of increasingly heavy Russian artillery barrages and making it more difficult for the invaders to advance.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is mounting a counter-offensive northeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, pushing Russian forces back towards the border. To slow Ukraine’s advance, Russia blew up three bridges. “Armies generally only destroy bridges if they have largely decided not to attempt to cross the river in the other direction anytime soon,” notes the Institute for the Study of War, an American think tank.
Russia also succeeded in occupying or blockading Ukrainian seaports. Before the war, 90% of Ukrainian steel and grain was exported by ship. Ukraine is struggling to find alternatives. The Russians have no trouble holding such towns. In Kherson, an occupied port city, Russia announced on May 6 that residents could apply for Russian passports. Few accepted the offer; Ukrainian prosecutors have opened charges against those who did. Despite intimidation, arrests and beatings, demonstrations against the occupation continue.
Given Mr. Putin’s total control over the Russian media, he may just need to declare victory while continuing to wear down Ukraine in a war of attrition. Whether that succeeds depends on Ukraine’s ability to counterattack. Russia has more artillery but has troop and motivation problems. Ukraine has enough motivation and troops, but currently lacks the firepower to launch major counter-offensives on multiple fronts, Ukrainian officials suggest.
Ukraine’s defensive and entrenched posture in the Donbass, the limited road network in the region and the muddy ground of recent weeks have made it difficult for both sides to move and concentrate their forces for rapid and large-scale offensives. scale. But a Western official says America and European countries are supplying increasing volumes of heavy weapons to Ukraine, including artillery and tanks, at least in part to encourage such efforts.
The medium- and long-range artillery systems that Ukraine desperately needs have been promised but are slow to come, says Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff. ” Hurry up. We want to save our heroes, not celebrate them posthumously,” he says.
Ukraine’s counterattacks will have limits. His army is unlikely to reverse all of Russia’s territorial gains since February 24, which Mr Zelensky described on May 6 as a precondition for negotiations. But there is every chance that Ukraine could bring Russian forces to a bloody halt, as it did north of kyiv in February and March. It is unlikely that Mr Putin will now be able to take all of Donbass, much less restore Russian control over what it calls Novorossiya, the region that stretches along the Black Seas and Azov. It is an unequivocal strategic defeat.
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