On the front line near Avdiivka, troops blame a lack of supplies for faltering war against Putin’s forces
22 February 2024
COLIN FREEMAN
OUTSIDE AVDIIVKA
Parked up on a winter-grey Donbas wheatfield, a Ukrainian military officer pointed out the distant skyline of the city of Avdiivka – or what was left of it.
On one side was the chimney stack of its Soviet-era coking plant. On the other, amid palls of battlefield smoke, were rows of war-ravaged housing blocks. It was a vast panorama of death and destruction – and, in the officer’s bitter words, a symbol of Ukraine’s betrayal by the West.
“If we’d had enough shells, we could be destroying the enemy from spots like this field, as we have a perfect vantage spot,” he said as artillery boomed in the background.
“Even Joe Biden has admitted that we haven’t been given enough military aid. Now we’re in the position where we have to decide which village we hand over next to the Russians.”
Russian troops finally raised their flag in Avdiivkalast Sunday, handing Vladimir Putin his first victory since taking nearby Bakhmut last May – and one conveniently timed for next month’s Russian presidential elections.
True, only a leader like him would see anything to boast about: the grimy industrial town of 30,000 people is a third of the size of Scunthorpe, and taking it has required the lives of an estimated 20,000 Russian troops. But it is hardly the finest hour for Kyiv’s foreign backers either.
Avdiivka’s fall is not just a story of Russian brute strength, but also of faltering Western support. Thanks to dithering over US and EU military aid packages since the autumn, Kyiv’s forces are running dangerously short on every front: artillery, drones, manpower and, to some extent, morale.
While the EU promised to send one million shells to Kyiv by March, it is set to deliver only 500,000. The White House, meanwhile, has been unable to convince Republican leaders to pass a $60 billion support package for Ukraine, leaving the US currently unable to send any ammunition whatsoever to the front.
The troubles that have resulted for Ukraine’s soldiers were clear when the officer took The Telegraph to meet a team operating a Grad rocket launcher, based within striking distance of Avdiivka.
Normally capable of raining 40 missiles onto Russian positions in a single burst, the Grad had lain silent for three days because of a lack of ammunition, said “Sergeant Andrew”.
The 28-year-old declined to specify exact figures of the shortfalls, but his soldierly vernacular spoke volumes.
“Things are f—–,” he said, in a stark warning delivered ahead of the second anniversary of the Russian invasion on Saturday.
“There’s no point in going into battle if we haven’t got enough ammo. It’s not that we’ve lost our spirit. We just don’t have the means to fight. If we have another few years like this, it will be a disaster – we’ll either run out of people, or everyone will just leave the country.”
Earlier this week, Volodymr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, warned that “the situation is extremely difficult in several parts of the front line,” and said Russia was “taking advantage of the delays in aid to Ukraine”.
By contrast, Putin – who only last summer was fighting for his survival after a coup attempt – was in bombastic mood on Thursday, taking a ride on a new nuclear-capable strategic bomber jet.
Western officials insist the capture of Avdiivka will not mark the start of a collapse of Ukrainian forces. “The Russians lack the combat effectiveness to be able to move on from Avdiivka,” one said on Thursday. “They almost certainly need a period of rest and recuperation.”
But in the days since the Russian flag was planted in the town, other spots along Ukraine’s 600-mile front line have also come under pressure.
In the village of Robotyne, nearly 200 miles south-west, Russian troops have launched a sustained assault, seeking to take back one of Ukraine’s few hard-won prizes from last summer’s counter-offensive.
To the north in Kupiansk, which Ukrainian troops recaptured in a lightning offensive in the autumn of 2022, a Kremlin force of around 40,000 is attacking.
And near the Black Sea city of Kherson, a Ukrainian bridgehead at Krynky, on the Russian-held side of the river Dnipro, is under increasing pressure.
once their houses are destroyed,” he said. “There was constant shelling, with everything on fire, and the aviation bombs were terrifying – even for someone like me.”
It takes a lot for someone like Mr Dyachenko to say that things are bad. A veteran rescuer, he shot to fame in Ukraine last May when he was photographed escorting a six-year-old from heavy shelling in Bakhmut.
His craggy face later featured on a postage stamp of Ukrainian war heroes, an honour also given to the soldier who radioed “Go f— yourself” to a Russian battleship.
That, though, was when the war was going Ukraine’s way, and Kyiv felt it had the West’s unwavering support. Now, even greater courage is required – to keep going when exhausted, and when Russia once again seems to hold the aces.
With around 70,000 war dead, Ukraine is running out of frontline heroes like Mr Dyachenko. Some military units are at a third of their strength and relying on replacements who are either old, inexperienced or mediocre.
“Our commander’s a legend – he’s been fighting since 2014, and he goes into the trenches with us,” said Vlad, 29, a frontline infantry soldier drinking at a coffee kiosk while on leave in Selydove, 25 miles east of Avdiivka.
“But our oldest guy is 50 and he’s not very fit – we just don’t have enough young people any more.”
Right now, towns like Selydove act as rearward echelons for Ukrainian forces, who have come here for much much-needed showers after fortnight-long stints in the freezing trenchesround Avdiivka.
But even here, the war feels as though it is getting closer again. A street away from where Vlad stood, a housing block had been torn apart by one of half a dozen missile strikes that had landed over the previous week.
In nearby villages, stacks of “dragons’ teeth” – concrete pyramids designed to halt tank advances – are piled up, ready to be scattered over surrounding fields.
To outside eyes, this corner of eastern Ukraine does not seem like much worth fighting for. It is an endless sprawl of coalmines, slagheaps and Stalin-era steel plants, a rust-belt unpolished since Soviet times.
Some factories are even still named after Communist heroes like the miner Alexei Stakhanov, famous for his slavish devotion to meeting Soviet production targets.
A century on, that very same Stakhanovite formula of quantity over quality is allowing Moscow to prevail on the battlefield.
“In my sector of Avdiivka, the Russians were losing about 25-40 soldiers daily, but even if they do 15 failed attacks, they just carry on and hope to succeed on the 16th, using their stocks of old Soviet artillery to overwhelm us,” said Nikolai, another soldier who had just left the town.
“If we hadn’t pulled out, we’d all be dead. Frankly, we just feel f—– all the time – I’ve been fighting since 2014, and all that keeps me going now is anger.”
With US funding for Ukraine stalled by pro-Trump Republicans, European capitals are trying to take urgent measures to step into the breach.
On Monday, Denmark said it would give its entire stock of artillery shells to Ukraine.
But it may be too little, too late. At one artillery unit outside Avdiivka, soldiers told The Telegraph that only two of their 18 Howitzers are operational because of the shortages.
“A year ago, we had plenty of shells – today we have hardly any,” said Chief Lieutenant Andrew, 32. “Artillery cover helps protect the lives of our infantry, but right now we can hit only a few of the targets that we want to.”
The Kremlin’s upper hand is not just thanks to its superior reserves of ordnance stocks.
In a conflict that has merged World War One trench fighting with cutting-edge digital technology, it has also improved its drone warfare – until very recently, an area where Ukrainian forces had seemed ahead.
While both sides use them, the Russians have recently acquired FPVs equipped with night vision, disrupting Ukrainian supply lines to Avdiivka that relied on the cover of darkness.
“The FPVs are a nightmare – I lost a friend of mine to one just yesterday,” said Maxim, 30, on R&R after fighting in the village of Klishchiivka, outside Bakhmut.
“We get them every hour, sometimes every 40 minutes, sometimes five or six on different frequencies so that our anti-FPV guns can’t jam them. We’ve been trying to shoot them down with old duck-hunting rifles.”
Another Russian game-changer is the drone’s bigger, badder cousin, the guided aerial bomb. Dropped from a plane and then guided onto a target by satellite, the bombs deliver a cruise missile-sized payload at a fraction of the cost.
“The Russians have intensified their guided aerial bombs since New Year,” said a soldier with a reconnaissance team outside Avdiivka, showing The Telegraph drone footage of a guided aerial bomb ploughing a quarter of ton of high-explosive into a school. “It’s been just total s— since.”
Despite the horrors, there seems little obvious blunting yet of Ukraine’s most important weapon – fighting spirit.
But many soldiers now complain of being made to fight “on enthusiasm alone”, and occasionally, there is even sympathy for Mr Trump’s pledge to make Ukraine negotiate should he be elected US president later this year.
“You want the view of a guy from the trenches?” asked one soldier at the coffee stand in Selydove. “We’re having big losses and we need help – things are far harder than they were a year ago. If Donald Trump wants to stop our weapons, f— him. If he wants to stop the war, though, I’ll vote for him myself.”
In the same breath – which, it should be noted, carried a whiff of illicit R&R boozing – the soldier ruled out any end to the war until Ukraine had regained all its land, including not just Avdiivka but the rest of the Donbas and all of Crimea.
Right now, such goals look more distant than ever – and according to soldiers like Maxim, the cost of regaining that territory is only likely to get higher.
“The longer the Russians fight, the more they learn from their mistakes,” he said, as he headed off for his first shower in a fortnight. “They’re much better now than when the war started. I think we can still win – the question is what price we will pay.”
Absolutely shattering report. Remember Viktor Pinchuk quoting a Ukrainian soldier stating his belief that the fucking norks are a far more reliable ally to putlerstan than the west is to Ukraine?
Well he was right wasn’t he?
From Ukraine’s finest to America’s worst: putinoid skank Ingraham gives Trump the chance to discuss Ukraine and out spews a torrent of self-serving drivel :
“But our oldest guy is 50 and he’s not very fit – we just don’t have enough young people any more.”
It’s not just ammo that is the problem. The longer that mass mobilization is delayed, the more outnumbered the defenders are.
If Ukraine has any foul-weather friends; and frankly I doubt it, the time is for them to act. Someone has got to send ground troops and shame the others into doing it too.
Right, Scradge1. And thus my question: What was the point of Zelenskyy handpicking a new military leadership, when he doesn’t have done his own homework, to make his own government coalition pass the mobilization bill? They’re discussing over 1300 amnendment proposals – it’s obvious that they’re just kicking the can down the road. There’s a serious lack of political leadership there! Hell, afaik, from media reports, Zelenskyy hasn’t even appointed all replacements for the recruitment officers he fired (probably for good reasons, ok) yet. I’m afraid that he may be losing control under the enormous stress of wartime government. ☹
Selected comments from DT readers:
Dominic Shelmerdine
Zelensky and Ukraine will have to make a deal on the land issue as this war is unsustainable both in cost and lives to Kiev. After two years, a reality check must deliver a peaceful outcome even if it means ceding territory to evil Putin.
However, the final border must be rigorously guaranteed and defended to that end.
This is mot rewarding aggression but dealing with reality.
Christopher Vincent
Reply to Dominic Shelmerdine –
Ukraine needs supporting them with better weapons rather than going along with Trump and Farage in appeasing Putin with talking about negotiations from a position of weakness.
Dominic Shelmerdine
Reply to Christopher Vincent –
I agree, but you have to deal with reality here and that is, Putin has, by far, the upper hand and this conflict must end.
Christopher Vincent
Reply to Dominic Shelmerdine
Ukraine needs the $60 billion and more up to date weaponry to get Putin to the table.
But even then a dictator can not be trusted.
Peter Salt
Reply to Christopher Vincent
How is that money going to make any difference when Ukraine’s biggest problem is manpower, artillery and air power? None of which is available to purchase from stock.
The kremtroll position:
Richard In Willesden A reality check for a conflict that arose entirely as a result of US and EU overreach in pursuit of their own interests. Even with weapons from the US/EU, Ukraine is running out of personnel, something of which the US, EU and Russia are fully aware. There is simply no point throwing good money after bad. The Ukrainian leadership need to realise that the US and EU are not going to supply any troops to Ukraine and can’t afford to waste a fortune funding the losing side. A negotiated settlement is essential, which will require Ukraine to accept the new borders declared by Russia, and Ukraine never joining the EU or NATO, and possibly being de-militarized. Hard to take for Ukraine, but the best deal likely to be on offer, the alternative being the whole country gets overrun by Russia. There is no appetite in the US/EU for prolonging an unwinnable conflict, but for Russia the conflict is an existential issue. In the unlikely event that Russia was backed into a corner and looked like being defeated, it would likely result in a massive nuclear strike from Russia, probably on the EU and UK. Politicians in the US and Europe are at last realising that there is no benefit in facilitating an escalation of a conflict that lacks any significant public support in either the US or Europe. The electorate in the US and Europe want peace, not nuclear war, or any type of war, and they will vote for any party that offers it.
Scott Driver
Reply to Richard In Willesden –
“The electorate in the US and Europe want peace, not nuclear war, or any type of war, and they will vote for any party that offers it.”
Complete hogwash. The last thing the West wants is an expansionist, aggressive Russia that takes Ukraine and is on Poland’s doorstep as an ever increasing threat, AND takes over Western weapons and forces Ukrainian soldiers into the Russian army as a potential threat to NATO and other countries.
Christopher Vincent
Reply to Scott Driver
Well said Scott.
There are far too many defeatist and apologists for Putin in these pages.
Kremtroll:
Brian Holloway
Putin invaded the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine because they were being treated as second class citizens and because NATO was about to be expanded to Russias borders along with its nuclear missiles… an existential threat to them just as Russian nukes would have been an existential threat to USA if parked in Cuba in 1962. In 2014 Ukraine democratically elected a pro Russian government. It was overthrown in a coup orchestrated by the CIA. These are facts do your research and take with a very large pinch of salt what western mainstream media are reporting.There was civil war in these Russian speaking regions when Russia invaded and the population welcomed the invasion.Immediately before the invasion western media called Ukraine the most corrupt country in Europe.
Zelenskys henchmen are the Azov brigade. They are a far right group who fought with the Nazis in WW2 and their ideology survives.They openly boast of their links.We have not been told the truth about Ukraine.
Scott Driver
Reply to Brian Holloway
“Putin invaded the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine because they were being treated as second class citizens and because NATO was about to be expanded to Russias borders along with its nuclear missiles”
Complete rubbish. Go back to Mad Vlad’s 5000 word essay in the summer of 2021 to find his REAL justification for invading Ukraine, and it doesn’t have anything to do with NATO and Ukraine, especially as Ukraine even if it did join NATO wasn’t going to get any nukes and NATO is a defensive organization that hasn’t attacked anyone, least of all Russia.
Vlad also said in his Tucker Carlson interview that he ‘considers Ukraine to be a non-country and really belongs to Russia.’
Talk to most Ukrainians and Russians and they’ll tell you that Vlad’s real reasons for invading are the following:
1) Take Ukraine’s water resources – a. The Dnipro so that Crimea can resume getting their water from the canal as the Ukraine’s cut off the supply in 2014 immediately following Vlad’s invasion. b. take the southern coast of Ukraine to capture Odessa and link up with Transistria and take Moldova.
2) Remove Zelensky and replace the government with a Russian puppet regime like Lukashenko in Belarus. Can’t have a prosperous Ukraine with a Western outlook outshining Russia and potentially set a bad example for the Russian people while undermining his highness Vlad the Mad.
“Richard in Willesden” and “Brian Holloway” are professional kremtrolls based in Britain. They are the U.K. analogue of the scrotes in the US posting lies on Breitbart, Gateway Pundit, infowars etc.
Both sound like lying cunts who are obviously paid moskali shills using western names to try to seem legitimate.
The ultimate debunk with their claim that moskovia had to protect it’s citizens is to ask why they didn’t demand the UN to act as peacekeepers and why the matter was not even mentioned in security council.
The performance of the Ukrainian army was exemplary and outright fantastic. The complete opposite is the performance of the West. It’s been piss poor from the get go until the bitter end. The consequences of a Ukrainian defeat or land for peace deal will echo negatively for years to come. Crying tears afterward and admitting its uncountable mistakes will not repair the damages done. Not only mafia land, but also china, iran, north korea, and every other trash entity will celebrate for days when this false peace is finally locked in place. The pinheads and small sausages of Western politics, like Biden, Macron, and Scholz, and also our pro-russian faction in Congress and the orange fool won’t have to fix this broken world, it’ll be those who follow, and especially our children, if that’s even possible.
Yes, we’re in the process to demolish the accomplishments of the post-WWII era. The one our incompetent leadership is making us stumble into will not be so cozy.
If the Russian-sponsored Johnson is pressured out, could someone even worse replace him?
Did you see that shameful Trumpkov-Ingraham shitshow?
Anything is possible with Trump’s gang in the House, unfortunately.
“Ukrainian Troops’ Angry Push for New Recruits”
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/27932
Good report on the manpower shortage. Must read, imho.
“I’m ashamed to be a westerner”
Incredible and vibrant call to the West from a British volunteer combat medic. Our apathy and belief in solving problems through magical thinking is losing us, obliterating Ukraine.
Johnson, “eight Gaetz”, Trump, Orban, are Moscow’s favorite gravediggers. It’s a shame. Not enough time will pass in the universe to forget the crimes of these collaborators. They will pay for each of their crimes.
Congress, we implore you to vote for this aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan! it’s a choice for life
My God!
I cried with this very fine man too.
I will post it.