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As Russia gradually seizes more territory in Ukraine and continues to pound various targets in the Donbas, analysts fear that Ukrainian fighters are losing the upper hand, leaving the eastern region vulnerable to being wholly seized amid a prolonged conflict.
“I am worried about it,” William Alberque, director of strategy, technology and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told CNBC. “There are huge risks that Ukraine will continue to lose land incrementally.”
A lot has changed since Russia first launched its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Having initially appeared to attack the country from the south, east and north, Russia soon appeared to realize it had bitten off more than it could chew and instead changed its focus to eastern Ukraine.
That move away from Ukraine’s capital city of Kyiv, as well as other strategic failures by Russia’s forces during the initial phase of the conflict, gave Ukraine’s leadership and fighters a big morale boost and there was optimism among Western allies that perhaps Ukraine could even “win” this war against its more powerful neighbor.
Such unabated optimism has not lasted long, however, particularly as Russia appears to be throwing everything it can at seizing the entire Donbas region as it aims to cement a land corridor from Russia via the Donbas to the Black Sea, where it seeks to take control of Ukraine’s ports and trade.
The Donbas region refers to the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces in the easternmost part of Ukraine.
For several weeks now, Russian artillery has been battering eastern Ukrainian cities such as Lysychansk and Severodonetsk — the last city held by Ukrainian forces in the Luhansk province.
On Monday, Luhansk’s governor warned that Russia controlled a majority of Severodonetsk and that severe fighting continued, with all but one bridge into the city destroyed and the last one critically damaged. What’s worse is that Russian forces appear to have renewed their assaults on Kharkiv too, Ukraine’s second largest city, to the northeast, after a period of respite.
Losing Severodonetsk would be a major blow to Ukraine, analysts agree, and there are concerns that the country’s forces could be starting to lose momentum in the fight against Russia’s re-focused onslaught.
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