In Ukraine, Russia is advancing death by death

When the Russian army launched its offensive against the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka last fall, Ukrainian forces noticed a change in tactics as column after column of Russian troops was pummeled by artillery fire.

Russian forces divided their infantry formations into smaller units to avoid being fired upon, while Russian airstrikes increased to undermine the city’s defenses.

It was one of many adjustments the Russians made to help their fortunes return after a disastrous first year. But these changes were overshadowed by one striking fact: the Russian army was still far more willing to absorb large losses of troops and equipment, even to make small gains.

Russian forces have a different pain threshold, a senior Western official said this month, as well as an unorthodox view of what is considered an acceptable level of military losses.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers have been wounded or killed since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, including tens of thousands last year in the battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut. Another town in the south, Marinka, fell to Russia in January, after heavy fighting and even more losses.

Avdiivka was among the most expensive. The various Russian casualty estimates circulating among military analysts, pro-Russian bloggers and Ukrainian officials suggest that Moscow lost more troops in the capture of Avdiivka than in the decade of fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

But the number of casualties is difficult to verify – inflated by the party causing the casualties and downplayed by the party suffering the casualties – leaving the true costs unknown. The official number of Soviet deaths in Afghanistan, about 15,000, is considered significantly underestimated.

A prominent military blogger wrote that the Russians had lost 16,000 troops at Avdiivka, a number that is impossible to confirm for now.

“Despite Russia’s heavy losses in Avdiivka, they still have a manpower advantage along the front and can continue attacks in multiple directions,” said Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute based in Philadelphia.

Russia’s slow progress comes as European countries move to increase support for Ukraine and strengthen their own defenses against possible Russian aggression. On Monday, NATO cleared the final hurdle approval of Swedish membershipLess than a year after Finland joined, there is talk of an expansion of the military alliance that defies the hopes of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to break the unity of his opponents.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on Sunday that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the battle against Russia. His comments were notable for how rare they were; participants in war almost never reveal numbers of victims. But most Western analysts and officials say the toll is much higher.

Since the beginning of the invasion, Russia has been willing to pay extremely high costs to advance into the area of ​​eastern Ukraine known as the Donbas, where Avdiivka is located. Parts of this traditionally Russian-speaking region have been occupied by Russian allies since 2014, and in justifying the large-scale invasion, the Kremlin has falsely claimed to be defending the Russian speakers, saying they want to be part of Russia.

Some military analysts say that taking full control of the Donbas is the bare minimum the Russian government needs to present the invasion of Ukraine as a victory at home. That may explain Moscow’s willingness to absorb huge losses to make marginal progress.

Avdiivka has been both strategic and symbolic for Russian war propaganda due to its proximity to Donetsk, the Donbas’ largest city, which has been under Russian-backed occupation since 2014. Securing Avdiivka would remove Ukrainian artillery from the city, reducing civilian casualties. and press the rear supply lines.

The Kremlin’s tendency in this war to fire more shells, gather more people and rely on a much larger and capable air force made it possible to gradually turn the tide against Ukraine’s deep defense line in Avdiivka. The enormous cost of injuries and deaths, according to some analysts, was merely the byproduct of a strategy that largely achieved its goals despite losses in men and equipment, especially as Western military aid and Ukrainian ammunition subsequently declined.

At least for now.

A Russian military analyst close to the defense industry, Ruslan Pukhov, wrote last week that the attack on Avdiivka was part of a broader Russian strategy to pressure Ukrainian forces along the entire 600-mile front line with thrusts and probes to wear down the enemy “with a thousand cuts.”

“However, such a strategy is quite costly for the Russian armed forces in terms of losses, which could lead to the exhaustion of its forces,” Mr. Pukhov wrote in a Russian current affairs magazine. “This in turn could give the Ukrainian side the initiative again.”

However, most analysts offer sobering assessments of Ukraine’s prospects through 2024 if the country does not receive U.S. aid. As the war enters its third year, both sides are struggling to find enough men to continue fighting at the same level of intensity. Russia’s much larger population, approximately 144 million, which is three times that of Ukraine, gives the country a significant advantage in manpower.

The magnitude of Russia’s losses has partially offset the impact of this calculation.

The Kremlin’s decision to call up 300,000 troops in September 2022 – for the first time since World War II – has shocked and unnerved the nation. according to polls. Hundreds of thousands of men had already fled the country when the war began, threatening to destroy the image of normality cultivated by Putin.

Since then, the government has tried to postpone a new round of mobilization as long as possible. Instead, it has strengthened financial and legal incentives to attract convicts, debtors, migrants and other vulnerable social groups to the front as volunteers. It has also begun to strictly enforce the previously lax mandatory military service for young men.

In a post published on the messaging app Telegram on February 18, a pro-war Russian military blogger quoted an anonymous military source as claiming that Russian forces had suffered 16,000 “irreplaceable” human losses since October, as well as those of 300 armored vehicles in the attack on Avdiivka. The Ukrainian armed forces had suffered 5,000 to 7,000 irreplaceable human losses in the battle, wrote the blogger Andrei Morozov.

These claims could not be independently verified.

Mr Morozov wrote that he had decided to publicize the losses in Avdiivka to hold Russian commanders accountable for what he described as an unnecessarily bloody campaign. Two days later, he deleted his post and claimed in a series of subsequent posts that he had been pressured to do so by Russian military commanders and Kremlin propagandists.

In those messages, Mr. Morozov — who was considered among bloggers to be fairly accurate in his reporting, but also emotionally volatile — spoke of ending his own life. He was found dead hours later, last Wednesday, his lawyer said.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has proceeded at a relatively predictable rhythm: neither side has the ability to launch massive attacks that would break enemy lines and allow quick gains on the battlefield. Instead, smaller units push forward, relying heavily on artillery and drones to capture every bit of ground.

Despite their losses in Avdiivka, U.S. officials predict that Russia will continue to pressure Ukrainian forces in multiple parts of the front line, hoping to demote Kiev’s units. The defeat on the battlefield, together with declining morale – exacerbated by the United States’ inability to continue supplying ammunition – could give Kremlin formations an opportunity to exploit the situation on the ground.

However, the Russian military does not have the kind of reserve forces that could make immediate use of the weakened defenses created by the withdrawal from Avdiivka, these officials said. US intelligence agencies have determined that the Russian military command had hoped to create a force capable of rapid frontline breakthroughs, but that plan was undermined by the need to strengthen their defenses during last year’s Ukrainian counter-offensive.

Attacking well-entrenched positions means that the attacking force is at much greater risk: those troops are exposed, and recovering the wounded and dead on the battlefield is exponentially more difficult than for those troops in a trench. Ukrainian troops are often surprised by the number of dead and wounded Russian soldiers they see scattered across the battlefield.

Yet the Russian troops keep coming. And now that artillery ammunition is critically low, the Ukrainians are much more selective in their use. One unit commander said he requested fire support for a group of Russian soldiers but was denied: there were not enough Russian troops to justify an attack.

“You can’t really stop them,” said the commander, who insisted on anonymity for security reasons. “While those in front are moving, they bring up others from behind.”

Julian E. Barnes and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.