Russian forces continued to seize a window of opportunity to make small tactical gains over the past week, as Ukraine began receiving packages of long-delayed U.S. military aid for the first time in weeks.
Ukraine also reported that Russia was amassing a worrying number of troops on its northern border and was preparing to confront a potential new front.
In this tense context, Europe sought to boost Ukraine's own defense industrial base to ensure that political problems among its allies never interfere with arms deliveries again.
Russian forces again managed to overtake the Ukrainian defenders at Ocheretyne. The village lies at the western point of a salient that the Russians have gradually built west of Avdiivka after taking that town in February.
They took advantage of a poorly executed substitution of the defending Ukrainian battalion to enter Ocheretyne in late April, but faced fierce resistance.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced that Ocheretyne had fallen on May 5, Orthodox Easter Sunday.
Satellite images seemed to confirm this, and three days later, Russian forces consolidated their capture by advancing four kilometers (2.5 miles) north of the village and extending their advances southward.
National Guard Captain Volodymyr Cherniak told The Guardian that Russian forces did this by flanking defenses that the Ukrainians had taken too long to dig because they lacked construction equipment.
Russian forces made marginal gains as they fought street by street in Robotyne, a small town in western Zaporizhia that Ukrainian forces recaptured in last year's counteroffensive. And on Monday they swallowed Novoselivske, a town in Luhansk.
Sergei Shoigu, Russia's defense minister, said during a conference call with Moscow's military leaders that his forces had seized 547 square kilometers (211 square miles) of territory in Ukraine since the beginning of the year.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, estimated the figure at 519 square kilometers (200 square miles).
But the Russian tactical failures were notable.
Throughout the week they attempted, unsuccessfully, to recapture Nestryga, an island in the Dnieper delta from which they had harassed Ukrainian forces on the right bank, and which Ukraine managed to recapture on April 28.
Southern forces spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk said in a telethon that there were several attacks a day.
“The occupiers have a big obstacle: it is the Dnieper, and to overcome it they are forced to use boats… but at the moment they are in an open area and therefore it is quite difficult for them and they are suffering. losses,” Pletenchuk said.
A Ukrainian bridgehead on the left bank that has forced back Russian artillery even managed to expand its position around Krynky on Monday. Here too, the relentless Russian attacks since the beginning of the year have failed to dislodge the garrison.
Russian forces also failed to capture the strategically important city of Chasiv Yar in the east, a prize Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly wanted before May 9, the anniversary of Nazi Germany's capitulation 79 years ago.
More ominously, Ukrainian deputy military intelligence chief Vadym Skibitsky said Russia was possibly preparing to make a new attempt to capture Sumy and Kharkiv, two northern cities it failed to take in February 2022 along with kyiv.
He told The Economist that Russia had massed 35,000 troops north of the Ukrainian border in these areas and would send them to Ukraine in late May or early June. Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets estimated the number was closer to 50,000.
Ukrainian parliamentarians have told Al Jazeera that Ukraine maintains tens of thousands of troops in the north of the country, far from active battle fronts, precisely for such an eventuality. During the war, Russian troops based in Belarus made several feints during preparation, possibly as a distraction. Now it appears that Ukraine is taking the threat seriously.
Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyii recently said he was sending more much-needed artillery and tanks to active fronts to reinforce northern forces.
But what about weapons?
Ukrainian officials have repeatedly said they need more Western-supplied weapons to resist and ultimately drive Russia off Ukrainian soil.
US President Joe Biden signed a supplemental spending bill into law on April 24, after it took six months for Congress to pass it, but there has been disagreement over how long it took $1 billion worth of weapons to reach Ukraine. dollars ready to be delivered.
Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said deliveries have arrived in Ukraine “sometimes within hours, if not within a day or two.”
But on Friday, six days after Biden signed the bill, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “We are waiting for the weapons to arrive in Ukraine.”
Somewhat inscrutably, the New York Times said that a first batch of anti-tank rockets, missiles and 155mm artillery shells had arrived in Ukraine meanwhile, on April 28.
Ukraine's European allies have continued to send weapons during the American holdup, but they have not been enough to sustain even defensive operations because Europe's defense industrial base has shrunk since the Cold War.
Ukraine embarked on a strategy to build its own industrial base last December and invited Western investors to accelerate that process.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell attempted to do so on Monday, when he brought together 350 Ukrainian and European industry representatives and government officials to foster partnerships backed by EU money.
“Ukraine is a country at war, it does not produce under normal conditions,” said Borrell. “That's why industry representatives need to understand that, firstly, these are new opportunities, secondly, there is a risk and, thirdly, there is financing.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called for a common European defense industrial space to eliminate redundancies and competitive weapons systems, as well as long-term industrial contracts and European defense planning.
“If we want to preserve peace in Europe, we must move to a European wartime economy and industry,” he said at the forum virtually. “Only in this way can we stop Russia's aggression: by demonstrating that Europe has the means for self-defense.”
The Russian threat dawns in Europe
Kuleba was not the only one who called for a change of economic and political course.
French President Emmanuel Macron told The Economist on Friday that Europe faced a triple threat from Russia.
“It is this triple existential risk for our Europe: a military and security risk; an economic risk to our prosperity; an existential risk of internal incoherence and alteration of the functioning of our democracies.”
Macron had struck this chord in a speech at the Sorbonne a week earlier.
“Our Europe today is mortal,” Macron had said. “He can die and that depends solely on our decisions.”
Europe was not armed to defend itself when “it faced a power like Russia that has no inhibitions or limits,” Macron said. “Europe must be able to defend its interests, with its allies at our side whenever they wish, and alone if necessary.”
Macron also reiterated the possibility of sending French troops to Ukraine speaking to The Economist, saying it could happen if Russia made a breakthrough and Ukraine requested it. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the statement was “very important and very dangerous.”
Ukraine's deputy head of military intelligence agreed that Europe was not prepared to defend itself.
Vadym Skibitsky told Newsweek that Russia could invade the Baltic states within a week, while it would take NATO at least 10 days to begin the process of coming to its aid.
From NATO's perspective, the need to help Ukraine has been growing along with the perception of the Russian threat in the rest of Europe.
Four months after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, NATO said it would create a permanent force of 300,000 troops to defend its eastern borders, up from 80,000 currently. In January, a series of NATO defense chiefs sharing similar intelligence said the alliance should prepare for a possible Russian invasion of NATO soil in just five to eight years.
On May 2, NATO's political decision-making body, the Atlantic Council, said NATO allies are “deeply concerned by recent malign activities on allied territory.”
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said a Russian campaign of hybrid activities including disinformation, espionage and sabotage was already underway in Europe.
On Sunday, the Financial Times cited European intelligence officials as saying Russia was preparing “covert bombings, arson attacks and infrastructure damage” in Europe.
