Hundreds of kilometers of new trenches must stop Russians on the Ukrainian front. But is that still on time?

Along the entire front, Ukrainian soldiers are increasingly taking up one of their oldest and most important weapons: the shovel. As quickly as they can, they dig deep trenches through tree roots, grain fields and sandy soils. Because they all know the adage that is more urgent than ever: ‘If you want to live, start digging.’

The state of Ukrainian defenses is crucial in the third year of the all-out Russian invasion. Since the fall of the city of Avdiivka in February, Ukraine has been increasingly losing ground on the eastern front. Moreover, President Volodymyr Zelensky says he expects an even bigger Russian offensive before the end of May or in June.

Ukraine is digging against the clock. On satellite images that de Volkskrant analyzed, it can be seen that the country has built hundreds of kilometers of new trenches, anti-tank ditches and other obstacles in the past four months. Most are located in the south and east of Ukraine, in the provinces of Kherson, Zaporizhia and Donetsk. Ukraine has also built new lines in the northeast, near the cities of Kharkiv and Sumy. “It is an indication that the Ukrainian army is committed to defending and exhausting the Russian army while waiting for Western support,” said Clément Molin of think tank Atum Mundi, who mapped the trenches.

Defenses

The army is trying to expand the existing fortifications into a full-fledged defense system with three lines: a front line, a line to fall back on and a final line for cities and strategic places. The new fortifications consist of trenches and bunkers, wide ditches to stop tanks and kilometers of rows of dragon’s teeth (concrete obstacles to thwart armored vehicles), as can be seen on satellite images from Planet Labs. Minefields are also part of the defense.

The goal is to stabilize the front line as quickly as possible. But can the defenses stop the Russian advance?

Ukraine relies on a defense that Russia successfully used last year on the other side of the front. Then Ukraine was advancing on the southern front and the Russian army dug in. The Ukrainian army suffered such heavy losses at the Russian lines that it had to abandon its attempts to liberate the area.

Now the Ukrainian army is in the mode that Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky describes as “active defense”: defend its own lines, cause heavy losses to the enemy and cause damage behind the front with air strikes. The government has allocated almost a billion euros for the construction of new lines.

Obstacle value

But Ukrainian lines are not as effective as Russian ones as the country suffers from air and artillery shortages, experts say. Only a trench only holds opponents back to a limited extent, says Carel Sellmeijer, engineer officer in the Dutch Army and assistant professor of Land Operations at the Dutch Defense Academy in Breda.

Many of the Ukrainian defenses are intended to slow advancing Russian soldiers. The time it takes for Russian infantry and combat vehicles to get through a minefield or bridge an anti-tank ditch provides opportunities to target them. “Artillery must be available when they are faced with an obstacle,” says Sellmeijer. “Then you create obstacle value.”

And Ukraine still has an acute shortage of artillery. In many places along the front, Ukraine has five times fewer artillery shells than Russia. As a result, it regularly fails to fire on advancing soldiers and vehicles in time.

Moreover, Ukraine is late in constructing the lines. It was mainly concerned with attacks last year, but had to give up that ambition due to a lack of Western support. Now it is struggling with fragile defense lines in some places.

Russia is trying to take advantage of this as quickly as possible. “This period is probably the most vulnerable time for Ukraine,” Michael Kofman, military analyst at the American think tank Carnegie, said in the podcast last week The Russia Contingency. He speaks of “one of the most challenging situations” since the invasion due to the Ukrainian shortage of lines, combined with shortages of anti-aircraft defenses, artillery and manpower.

Images show that Ukrainians sometimes build new lines close to combat areas, with the associated risks. For example, diggers and their machines were recently attacked by the Russian army.

Withdrawal

Also in Chasiv Yar, a strategically located place, Ukrainian soldiers are shot from their positions with Russian artillery shells and hover bombs. Ukrainian soldiers say that Russia is also increasingly using banned chemical weapons during storms, such as tear gases and gases that make breathing difficult.

The resumption of US arms support, approved last week by Congress and President Joe Biden, gives Ukrainian soldiers hope that they will soon be able to return fire more often. But their backlog of ammunition is enormous, after almost six months without American deliveries and without sufficient replacement from Europe. Moreover, many soldiers have had to pay for the political intrigue in the West with their lives and the Ukrainian army now suffers from a lack of infantry in the trenches.

“The boys will pay with their lives and health for the stupidity and irresponsibility of high-ranking commanders,” Mykola Voroshnov, an aerial reconnaissance officer of the Ukrainian army’s 72nd Brigade, wrote on Facebook. He and many other Ukrainians believe that the army leadership should have ordered the construction of strong lines earlier.

Pokrovsk

Ukraine is losing ground especially quickly in the eastern province of Donetsk. Since the fall of Avdiivka in February, Ukrainian soldiers have been driven out of one village after another by the Russian army. Commander-in-chief Syrsky said on Sunday that Ukraine had again had to hand over three villages, bringing a Russian attack on the city of Pokrovsk close by. The Ukrainian army can make good use of the newly constructed trenches during its withdrawal. In some places in Donetsk province, the new defense line is only five kilometers from the front.

This shortage of soldiers makes it difficult to defend lines against an army that fights in large numbers. During this war, Russian commanders have consistently shown their willingness to sacrifice large numbers of soldiers for small territorial gains. That “contempt for human lives and equipment” makes it easier for Russia to break through, says Sellmeijer. “They may sacrifice 10 percent of a unit to get through a minefield, but 90 percent get through.”