To hold out at all costs or to prepare the retreat to lines that are easier to defend? The issue is haunting Ukraine’s top brass as the Russian army ramps up assaults on a large portion of the front in Donbass, taking advantage of an increasingly glaring shortage of artillery ammunition on the Ukrainian side. And enemy assaults are now daily on an 80-kilometre-long line running from Khromove, in the north, near Bakhmut, to Marinka, southwest of Donetsk.

On 10 December, the commander of the ground forces, Oleksandr Syrsky, described the operational situation in the east of the country as “difficult”. "The enemy," he said on his Telegram channel, "continues to carry out offensive actions along the entire front." On the same day, Roman Svitan, one of the country’s most respected military experts, warned that a Russian breakthrough in the town of Avdiivka could lead to “a 20-kilometre withdrawal” and "cause the collapse of the entire front" in Donbass. Holding Avdiivka, he added, was "not a political question [referring to the fierce resistance to Bakhmut during the previous winter], but a purely military necessity."

25 kilometers from the front, the commander of the56th Motorized Infantry Brigade also paints a bleak picture of the situation. “If the trend continues, namely a decrease in artillery ammunition deliveries, it will be impossible to hold out,” said Yan Yatsychen, known by the nom de guerre “Nocturne”. At the age of 38, he commanded 7,000 men positioned on the defensive side of an 18-kilometre section of the front. He received guests at the brigade headquarters, which he ordered to be built underground, when he took office six months ago, in a discreet location near the city of Kramatorsk.

"The previous HQ was destroyed by a Russian missile**," said Serhii, an aide to the commander.** So far, they haven’t spotted this one. In any case, we have never been bombed. Several soldiers stand guard at the entrance to the base. Inside, a gallery at least a hundred meters long leads to the commandant’s office. The smell of freshly cut pine fills the air: the entire structure is made of wood. Containers serve as offices and meeting places for the56th fighters, who live mostly scattered in houses and apartments in Kramatorsk to avoid being spotted and decimated by Russian ballistic missiles.

On a staff map spread out in front of him on the table, the commander shows a Ukrainian position attacked "for three days without respite" by 120 Russian infantrymen divided into eleven groups. The position was defended by five to eight of his soldiers. "The Russians are attacking from three or four sides at once. These assault groups are made up of “zeks” [prisoners, recruited in Russia to be sent to war] trained by the Wagner [Group]. Their officers have no regard for them: the wounded are not evacuated, the dead are abandoned," Yan Yatsychen said. "Thanks to our reconnaissance drones," he continues,** "we can observe all their movements. We can distinctly see them approaching. We record their routes in such a way as to accurately hit their reinforcements, who are taking these same routes, with mortar fire. »

Withdrawing from the Ukrainian position, a small platoon stands ready to evacuate the wounded and dead. “If you have an injured person, four go for him and the fifth takes his place in the position.” It’s a perilous operation. "The chance of survival is 70% when you stay in the position**,"** says Yan Iatsychen. They can drop to 10% if the position is evacuated. »

The commander said he was short of men and was unable to send his soldiers to rest or even to formation. But the most problematic aspect, he insists, is the lack of ammunition. "The trend has been taking shape since this summer. However, on the Russian side, it is quite the opposite. They were reinforced by a new artillery brigade, five divisions, with two Tornado [multiple rocket launchers], and Grads, as well as 2S3 self-propelled guns. In front of me, I have thirty MSTA-B howitzers while I only have two. They have fired 5,000 shells in the last twenty-four hours. There has never been such an asymmetry! »

The day before, his men had managed to annihilate an entire battalion of 82mm and 120mm mortars. “The next day, twelve new mortars appeared to support their infantry assaults,” the officer complained.

Kamikaze Drones

Despite his features drawn by lack of sleep, Yan Iatsychen speaks energetically. "We don’t sit on our backs and bemoan the situation. I have set up a local ammunition production here in Kramatorsk. He shows a video on his mobile phone filmed in a vast underground workshop. Staff are busy around pieces of ammunition. "The workshop produces munitions for kamikaze drones and anti-personnel mines**,"** he says. We also have a large quantity of anti-personnel mines recovered from the stockpiles left behind by the Russians when they fled Kherson [in November 2022]. We mine remotely with drones, always on the routes taken by the Russians during their assaults. According to him, the accuracy of the kamikaze drones would make it possible to compensate for the deficit of the artillery.

Still, the inability of the Ukrainian defense industry to provide for its army exasperated the officer and inspired him to swear words. “These people obviously didn’t feel the effects of the war. They didn’t lose relatives at the front, nor their homes, nor their land, like the people here.” It also notes that the level of ammunition supply for Ukrainian weapons is much lower than that provided by Western allies. “Ukrainian-made, I only saw 120mm shells.” He makes an exception for the Stugna-P anti-tank guided missile, which he says is very satisfied with the quality.

‘The Caesar cannon very vulnerable’

His critics, however, do not spare Western weapons either. "Your Caesar self-propelled gun [manufactured by the French group Nexter] fires very quickly and with the precision of a goldsmith. But I use it very little because it’s very vulnerable and ill-adapted to the realities of war. Because of its large size, the Caesar would be quickly spotted by Russian drones, which made it a priority target.

"If I take it out into the open to shoot, it becomes the target of counter-battery fire after three to four minutes. I don’t have time to evacuate him out of the danger zone [the Caesar needs at least five minutes to shoot and then flee]. Whereas with the M-777 [towed American howitzer], I can fire an average of 300 shells a day**,"** the commander continued***. With the Caesar, if I get five, that’s fine. The M-777 is easy to conceal, and I can install a metal casing around it to protect it from the*** [Russian kamikaze drone] Lancet. According to the Oryx website, which lists the material losses attested to by the two belligerents, out of the thirty copies of the Caesar supplied to Ukraine, four have been destroyed and two damaged in recent months. Each time, it seems, by the Russian Lancet.

“Hiding the Caesar is tantamount to degrading its satellite link, without which it becomes impossible to guide the fire. We should either be able to guide the fire in manual mode, or the satellite antenna should be detachable,” suggests the “Nocturne” commander, who also mocks the vulnerability of the gun to dirt: "This lady [the Caesar] likes cleanliness too much. Its operators are like surgeons, always wearing gloves and shoe covers, forced to sleep in them so as not to get it dirty. As a result, there is no shortage of ammunition for the Caesar. But these are not his concerns.

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