Russia gains ground in Ukraine, but at steep cost

Russia has made slow but steady gains in recent weeks against Ukraine but at a steep cost — the bloodiest month in the nearly three-year war, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

Casualties from the offensives in the Donbas have brought Russia’s total number of dead and wounded to over 600,000, according to officials granted anonymity to brief reporters at the Pentagon on the course of the war.

The estimate of the casualties — more than 40 times Russia’s losses during its decade-long invasion of Afghanistan in the 1990s — is in line with previous Ukrainian estimates, but tells only part of the story.

Russian forces have seized ground over the past several months in eastern Ukraine, capturing several key towns that the Ukrainians have stubbornly held in the face of massive Russian onslaughts.

The plodding and bloody gains are nearing the town of Pokrovsk in Donbas, a major transportation hub for front-line Ukrainian forces, one of the officials said. The loss of the town would be a major blow to Ukrainian forces fighting along hundreds of miles of contested front line.

The Russian offensives since the summer have consisted of massive artillery attacks followed by large troop movements rushing headlong toward well-entrenched Ukrainian positions, resulting in thousands of casualties as Moscow’s commanders seem to have decided on a strategy of trading bodies for ground.

Russian gains have been the most sustained and significant since its initial invasion in February 2022, and Moscow appears to be betting that casualties are sustainable, at least in the short-term.

“They have attempted to overcome [Ukrainian] fires with massive maneuver,” a military official said. “If you look at the salient around Pokrovsk the number of Russian forces there is astounding. It’s tens of thousands of forces that they’ve put into that very small area. As you know, when you have that many forces in a very small area … it’s a target rich environment” for the Ukrainians.

The Ukrainian government has rushed troops to fill gaps in their front lines, but have continued to fall back since the summer, unable to fully counter the Russian assaults.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been shopping his “plan for victory” to leaders in Washington and Europe but has managed to generate little enthusiasm for its key tenets — more weapons and a lifting of restrictions by the U.S., U.K. and Germany to allow their long-range weapons to be used deep inside Russia where Kyiv sees fit.

A civilian defense official at the briefing said there has been no change in U.S. policy on the use of western-supplied weapons.

The issue had been expected to come up this weekend at a summit of NATO heads of state slated in Germany. But the meeting was canceled after President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin pulled out due to preparations for Hurricane Milton.

NATO defense ministers are scheduled to meet in Belgium next week.

There has been some concern that the thousands of troops Ukraine poured into the Kursk region of Russia since August has led to shortages in other areas. But the military official said analysts believe Ukraine can keep up the fight inside Russia for months before the Russians can fully organize a response.

The Ukrainians have been able to resupply troops inside Russia, but the Russians, due to poor coordination and planning, “have significant logistical issues on their side in terms of repositioning troops and organizing themselves” to go on the offensive, the official said.

“There’s been nothing that would indicate to me that they’re ready to make a major play toward taking Kursk back, and I don’t think they’ll be able to do it anytime soon.”