Ukraine’s troops are building fortifications ahead of an expected Russian offensive in the spring, amid fears that progress on them is not fast enough, it has been reported.
Russian forces built formidable defenses known as the “Surovikin Line” named after Russian general Sergey Surovikin, which stifled Ukraine’s summer offensive of 2023.
The Wall Street Journal reported Ukrainian troops are also building trenches and anti-tank ditches to counter Russian forces which have gained momentum following their capture of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region last month.
But Ukrainian soldiers are building fortifications under fire with Maksym Zhorin, deputy commander of Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade, telling the WSJ, “we have to dig, entrench, and build by ourselves.”
Amid hold-ups in further U.S. military aid, Ukraine is conserving ammunition, digging in and looking to hit Russian forces on the move in what is termed active defense.
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“Ukraine needs to adopt an active defense strategy. It can trade space for time, seeing as Ukraine is massive territorially,” Zev Faintuch, senior intelligence analyst at security firm Global Guardian, told Newsweek last week.
“Russia has only really been able to advance in areas where it can amass superiority in artillery fires and manpower,” he said, “with longer-range weapons soon to come online, including fighter jets and plenty of small systems capable of taking out vehicles—it’s hard to see rapid Russian advances.”
But observers have noted slow progress in fortification efforts as momentum turns in favor of Russia, particularly after its capture of Avdiivka.
The WSJ reported that west of Avdiivka, excavators are carving up the earth to create anti-tank ditches and trenches.
Oleksiy Hetman, a major in Ukraine’s National Guard, raised concerns about his country’s ability to build defenses and whether it was too little, too late. “The fortification lines should have been built since the beginning of 2022,” he told Ukrainian outlet Espreso TV.
“The fact is that we really cannot build defense lines in three rows and 1,500 km (930 miles) long, which would be as powerful as the so-called Russian Surovikin lines,” he said.
“We definitely won’t have time to build it, we don’t have enough technical and human resources,” he added, as he called for people all over Ukraine to assist.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on February 25 there would be an audit of the fortifications to help identify and eliminate weaknesses on the front line.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said this week Kyiv had set aside almost $790 million for fortifications.
However, defense analyst Franz-Stefan Gady told the WSJ that “the lack of layered defenses along the front line should be of some concern.”
Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said on X on Wednesday that “fortifications are a priority effort and one of the main areas Ukraine is trying to improve at the front right now.”
Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian Defense Ministry for comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.