Outnumbered and Worn Out, Ukrainians in East Brace for Russian Assault

Exhausted Ukrainian troops complain they are already outnumbered and outgunned, even before Russia has committed the bulk of its roughly 200,000 newly mobilized soldiers. …

The civilians standing in the way of Russia’s planned advance once again face the agonizing decision of whether to leave or to stay and wait out the coming calamity. This area in the northern Donbas was among the last to be liberated in a Ukrainian blitz offensive last fall that raised hopes among local residents that their months of trauma were over.

But the war has come back. …
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When and where the new offensive will begin in earnest is still unclear, but Ukrainian officials are gravely concerned. …

But the Russian military just keeps coming. Right now, the newly mobilized troops are finishing their training and entering the field; the forces include as many soldiers as took part in the initial invasion last year.

They could be ready to fight in as little as two weeks, …— much sooner than new Western weapons, including tanks and heavy armored fighting vehicles, are expected to arrive in Ukraine.

“There are so many,” Mr. Haidai [governor of the Luhansk Region] said of the new recruits. “These are not professional soldiers, but it is still 200,000 people who are shooting in our direction.”

Russia is expected to punch hard, looking to reverse nearly a year of cascading failure. While a renewed attack on Kyiv is now considered improbable, Russian forces will likely try to recover territories they lost last fall. as well as take full control of the Donbas, a key objective of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin.
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The first stages of the Russian offensive have already begun. …Bakhmut, an eastern Ukrainian city that Russian forces have been trying to seize since the summer, is likely to fall soon. …

The efforts are already straining Ukraine’s military, which is worn out by nearly 12 months of heavy fighting.

Troops say they have tanks and artillery pieces, but not enough of either, and have far less ammunition than their adversaries. Russian forces have also started to field more sophisticated weaponry, like the T-90 tank, which is equipped with technology capable of detecting the targeting systems of anti-tank weapons like the American made Javelins, limiting their effectiveness.

Mostly, though, the challenge comes down to numbers.

“It’s particularly difficult when you have 50 guys and they have 300… “You take them out and they keep coming and coming. There are so many.”

Losses among Ukrainian forces have been severe.

It not just the influx of soldiers that is consuming doctors; civilians, too, are frequent victims of Russian attacks…this is part of a deliberate strategy of overwhelming Ukraine’s military hospitals.
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Whether Russia will be able to capitalize on its strength in numbers is an open question. Russian soldiers, according to Ukrainian and Western assessments, are dying in far greater numbers. American officials now estimate the number of Russian troops wounded and killed to be approaching 200,000, an astounding casualty rate.
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“We also have losses, but they have huge losses,” Badger said. “We’ve wasted them all in huge numbers.”

… soldiers from the Carpathian Sich said they had enough ammunition to hang on for now. One soldier, with the call sign Diesel, showed videos on his phone of the bodies of Russian troops he had killed when they came too close.