Ukraine digs defenses, fears it could lose Russia war with U.S. aid delays

The possibility of a renewed Russian offensive on Kharkiv is top of mind for one Ukrainian sergeant whose battalion is stationed in the area.“We won’t let them take it,” said the bullish sergeant, who goes by the call sign “Marine” and did not want his name published as he was not authorized to speak publicly. But the challenge was evident: Their ammunition levels are so low, the sergeant said, that for every shot his troops fire, the Russians respond with 10. Ukrainian commanders don’t let them fire until Russian forces are already storming their positions, which is often too late, Marine said.

But while fears of an attack on Kharkiv in the north are mounting, the Russians have been actively pushing near the town of Chasiv Yar, a front-line city in the eastern Donetsk region just 30 miles north of Avdiivka.

Last week, Russian state media reported that Russian forces entered the suburbs of Chasiv Yar, and on Monday Russia’s Defense Ministry said its paratroopers stormed a Ukrainian stronghold on the outskirts of the city. Ukraine admitted last weekend that things were “difficult” there.

“Russia is already trying to advance now,” said Mykola Bielieskov, a research fellow at Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies, a government research group. “They are trying to take advantage of the fact that Ukraine is suffering severe shortages of artillery and air defense.”

To hold them off, Ukraine is digging deep in more ways than one.

Three defense lines are being built, even where there are no hostilities, Zelenskyy said last weekend while visiting new fortifications in the northern Chernihiv region, bordering Belarus. In some areas of the front, the fortifications are nearly finished, he said, and include “dragon teeth” installments and ditches to stop tanks. Zelenskyy said he is making no secret of this because he wants Moscow to know “there will be resistance.”

It’s a far cry from a year ago, when it was Russia’s military building trenches to try and fend off a Ukrainian counteroffensive that ultimately petered out.

But digging in is probably the best that the Ukrainians can do right now, said Bryden Spurling, a defense and security expert at RAND Europe. “What I worry about is that if there is a breach, it could lead to a fairly large collapse if the Russians are able to exploit that,” Spurling said. “What you would want the Ukrainians to be able to do is to throw in reserves to plug that gap. But it’s hard to know how much Ukraine actually has that capacity.”