More than 600 miles of new concrete trenches and underground command centres are fortifying Kyiv’s positions
20 January 2024
Row upon row of freshly-dug trenches, concrete dragon’s teeth and underground command centres adorn vast expanses of Ukraine’s countryside.
The new fortifications have sprung up along key segments of its more than 621 miles of front as Kyiv’s spluttering counter-offensive turned into what military analysts have described as an “active defence”.
In a signal of a change of posture, president Volodymyr Zelensky late last year announced Ukraine was “significantly enhancing” its fortifications.
Defensive preparations were boosted around the Donetsk towns of Lyman and Avdiivka, as well as Kupiansk in the neighbouring Kharkiv region.
Minefields that plagued Ukraine’s Nato-trained brigades of Western tanks and armoured vehicles have been replicated by Kyiv.
But the Ukrainians face a quandary.
Their defences simply cannot be as rigid along the front lines as the Russian fortifications that stretched from the southern Zaporizhzhia to eastern Donetsk, the main focus of Ukraine’s offensive.
While stronger fortifications would slow down Russian troops, reduce the number of Ukrainian troops needed to defend and mean fewer casualties, it would also diminish Kyiv’s ambition to retake its occupied territory.
Political quandary
“The issue for the Ukrainians is they don’t want to just go static,” said Edward Arnold, of the Royal United Services Institute think tank. “If the lines go static and they don’t move at all, that’s not great from a political point of view.”
This is where the concept of “active defence” comes in for Ukrainian forces: holding the defensive lines while maintaining offensive action in the hope of finding weak spots that could lead to a collapse in the Russian lines.
Therefore, the fortifications will become heavier the further you move into Ukrainian-held territory, with the front lines allowed to remain flexible.
Forward defence has been a hallmark of Ukraine’s resistance, refusing to sit back and allow their forces to rest on their laurels.
The aim for 2024 for Ukraine appears to be to replenish their battle-stricken forces and regenerate offensive combat power ahead of next year.
Maintaining a flexible line of defence will enable Ukraine troops to train but also ensure a readiness should an offensive opportunity arise, according to Mr Arnold.
“Static defences are rarely a good idea for militaries, because it sort of fixes your own ability to manoeuvre,” he added.
The skills and fitness of soldiers can easily degrade if they are sat in trenches for too long, especially during Ukraine’s bitter cold winter months.
Deeper into Ukrainian-held territory, fallback positions emerge, consisting of trench networks and new dug-in command centres.
Where the Ukrainians have taken up more static defensive positions, they have placed a series of fortifications less than a mile apart.
“Each fort can defend itself from every direction,” Clement Molin, co-founder of the French Atum Mundi think tank, said. “You have to take all of them to advance.”
Main offensive target
In Avdiivka, currently the main offensive targetfor Russian forces, Ukraine has positioned its main defensive line some ten miles back.
The heaviest of the new defences may be around Chernihiv, the northern region Russia was driven away in the early months of the war.
Kyiv has bolstered its defensive fortifications in the north by 63 per cent, according to a recent report by the Reuters news agency.
Large engineering vehicles have excavated trenches and wide anti-tank ditches along the whole northern zone, which was the direction of one Russian offensive to capture Kyiv.
Rows of dragon’s teeth, concrete structures to block tanks and armoured vehicles, are covered in coils of barbed wire in this area.
While there is no expectation this area will become a new front, the static defences mean Ukraine can deploy the bulk of its forces closer to the action.
Selected comments from DT readers:
Arturo Di Lucca
Ukraine to hold the lines. UK’s laser system to provide low cost air defence, a 10 dollar laser shot to take out a 5000 dollar drone, instead of 1 million usd patriot. ATACMS to take out Kerch bridge and other long rage targets, make the logistics difficult for Russia. Make it a war of losses for Russia, eventually public opinion will turn, like it did with the Afghanistan occupation. I don’t see a quick win though, more a long war.
Frazer Torry
Unless we supply troops I can’t see this ending well for Ukraine.
Rover Wilde
The West could have helped Ukraine drive Russia back over a year ago but was too timid to do it. Where are the F16s promised to Ukraine? Why is Biden still holding back on giving Ukraine long range missiles? When will the devious French stop playing the diplomatic middle man and give substantial military aid and not just empty, hypocritical words of support to Ukraine?
Matt Forster
The Ukrainians are active tonight. Reports of massive explosions in Smolensk and Tula. Бавовна! https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1748817064045781014?t=TpAOwQPxSh0p9K6b3jVngQ&s=19
David Farrow
We are going to end up with a situation similar to that on the Korean peninsula where North and South are still technically at war.
Reply from a Mearsheimer-loving kremtroll:
Caroline Clayton
Reply to David Farrow
If Ukraine’s lucky. Prof John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago forecast the outcome of the war 8 years ago. Ukraine losing Crimea, the 8 Russian oblasts and the Black Sea coast and being turned into a rump state.
Robert Alan Sutton
Reply to Caroline Clayton
More likely Korea plus. You might get to keep Luhansk and the half of Donetsk oblast you already have but Ukraine will hold the line and harry you in the rear as it is already doing. You may keep the Crimea but it will be a liability for you. You can’t use it as a base, and it is economically loss making.
Chris Green
The best Ukraine can hope for is that the current front line becomes the border. If the US Republicans get their way, Ukraine will cease to exist as a sovereign nation.
Hair Braine
Clearly some concern in Moscow judging by the number of Russophile comments being posted.
Percy Blakeney
Apparently, the Russian airforce is having ‘time off’ at present and Russian troops are attacking front line positions with little or no back up from tanks or other armoured vehicles. Strange! Unless we are beginning to see major shortages of Russian equipment.
David Ash
Reply to Percy Blakeney
The ruZZian manual of military tactics is one page long. And that includes a 300 word dedication to the genius of The Great Leader.
Ben Hughes
It has become the predicted war of attrition. We must continue to provide Ukraine with the aramanents it needs to defend the territory it currently holds and to degrade Russia’s own capability. This is our existential threat. Far more so than any perceived threats from immigration.
M Swain
When Russian soldiers know the truth, the war is over.
Kremtroll:
peter smith:
They ve had it US proxy war is lost been obvious for weeks.
David Crawford
Reply to peter smith –
“US proxy war” = pro-Putin propaganda puppet.
What part of Putin ordered the invasion of an independent sovereign nation called Ukraine do you not understand? It’s very easy to comprehend if you stop posting pro-Putin propaganda. You might like to try it.
B Mulhern
We can’t talk to Putin. He must be defeated on the battlefield. Anything less means we commit our children to further war. We cannot compromise with killers. A few European leaders or opposition politicians think there must be compromise. How dangerously naive. The only good Putin is a dead Putin. Once sufficiently humiliated the Russian military may put an end to Putin. Whether they have the courage ? Who knows
Kremtroll:
JJ Walsh
What a truly ridiculous article
A blind Martian can clearly see that Ukraine has NO hope of mounting any credible offensive
We should hope the large scale ground war is over as all the risks now are for a Russian advance
The sooner we are told the truth about the state of this war the better.
Scott Vista
Reply to JJ Walsh
Their hope of mounting an offensive is far more credible than:
1. Putin’s reasons for invading Ukraine and beginning this war
2. His belief that it would all be over quickly
3. His hopes of defeating and occupying Ukraine
4. His naive belief that the West will eventually lose interest and look the other way.
There is one person and one person alone who has heaped all this misery on the people of both Ukraine and Russia, the mad monk of Moscow. Putin.
John Cubbin
Reply to JJ Walsh –
Russia is becoming a war-oriented economy and is likely greatly to increase the number of armed forces and the production of armaments. It is learning fast from its mistakes over the past two years.
The West is barely stirring yet, with many siren voices calling for “peace in our time” and keen to get back to doing business with Russia and enjoying their peace dividend still.
Meanwhile the ideology within Russia is of regaining her former dominance through conquest, which plays very well politically, even if there is a large degree of self delusion.
The situation is dangerous, especially if we do not support Ukraine at a greater level.
“Frazer Torry”
“Unless we supply troops I can’t see this ending well for Ukraine.”
To repeat a previous comment:
Ukraine does not have enough troops to defend herself from a gigantic fascist horde*, let alone retake and hold land currently occupied by orc vermin. Therefore allied ground troops need to enter Ukraine and stay there. At least until such time that Russia has become a benign democracy; which is likely to take from 100 years to never. *putler intends to swamp Ukraine with orcs; eventually millions and then he will be unstoppable. That’s why the nazi shitweasel needs to be completely crushed right now.
An injection of allied ground troops in a defensive capacity would be an immense help in practical and morale- boosting terms.