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The fog of war is thicker than usual here given how far the fighting in northeastern Ukraine is from Kiev. Still, there’s noise today from the Ukrainian side about a surprise counteroffensive in Sievierodonetsk, the Donbas city that’s been pounded by Russia for weeks. Reports emerged a few days ago that the Ukrainians had finally given up and begun to retreat there, not wanting to sacrifice troops for the sake of holding an area that’s not very strategically important. Putin, however, seems to want Sievierodonetsk badly in order to cement Russia’s claim to the larger Donbas region and give his army a shot of morale.

The Russians are so focused on the city that the rest of the front stretching hundreds of miles from the northeast to the southwest has been mostly quiet these last few weeks. Their strategy at the moment seems to be “Take Sievierodonetsk and we’ll figure out the next step from there.” They seemed to have succeeded.

But this morning brought a surprise:

The Ukrainian governor in Luhansk claims that the city is now controlled roughly 50/50 by the two sides. Here’s more from the Institute for the Study of War. For reference, Lysychansk is the sister city of Sievierodonetsk, located just across the river. It’s also built on higher terrain, giving the Ukrainians there an advantage:

Pro-Russian milblogger Voenkor Kotyenok Z claimed that Russian forces are unlikely to break through Ukrainian defenses in Lysychansk from Severodonetsk (through continued frontal assaults and an opposed crossing of the Siverskyi Donetsk River) and will likely need to complete the drive from Popasna if they hope to capture Lysychansk. Voenkor Kotyenok Z claimed that Ukrainian forces could prevent Russian river crossings from Severodonetsk and highlighted that Russian forces have not yet secured access to two key highways to Lysychansk.

The Ukrainian government and military are furthermore discussing the battle of Severodonetsk in increasingly confident terms and are likely successfully blunting the Russian military’s major commitment of reserves to the grinding battle for the city. While Russian forces may still be able to capture Severodonetsk and Lysychansk and Ukrainian forces are likely more degraded than Haidai’s statements imply, Ukrainian defenses remain strong in this pivotal theater. The Russian military has concentrated all of its available resources on this single battle to make only modest gains. The Ukrainian military contrarily retains the flexibility and confidence to not only conduct localized counterattacks elsewhere in Ukraine (such as north of Kherson) but conduct effective counterattacks into the teeth of Russian assaults in Severodonetsk that reportedly retook 20% of the city in the last 24 hours. The Ukrainian government’s confidence in directly stating its forces can hold Severodonetsk for more than two weeks and willingness to conduct local counterattacks, rather than strictly remaining on the defensive, is a marked shift from Ukrainian statements as recently as May 28 that Ukrainian forces might withdraw from Severodonetsk to avoid encirclement.

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Why would the Ukrainians bother trying to hold Sievierodonetsk? Presumably it’s because they recognize it as their best opportunity at the moment to attrit Russia’s forces. The long-range artillery war has become a turkey shoot thanks to the enormous firepower advantage the Russians enjoy. “If our side shoots one their way, we get 10 or 15 back,” said one Ukrainian commander to WaPo. Ukrainian troops are reportedly dying at a clip of 50 to 100 per day lately and morale has suffered. “The amount of firepower, the number of explosions, the length and duration of the attacks — all of that together, and the fact that you can’t defend against it, you can’t shoot down the rounds, means it’s a lot of casualties and it is also incredibly demoralizing,” Fred Kagan told the Post.

None of that will change until American and British long-range weapons make their way onto the battlefield. Until then, if the goal is to kill as many Russians as possible in preparation for a major counteroffensive this fall, close-quarters urban combat is the Ukrainians’ obvious option. As risky as it is, it neutralizes Russia’s artillery advantage and makes the war a fairer fight. That’s why they’ve taken another stab at Sievierodonetsk, I assume — and why the Russians are reportedly trying to minimize the number of regular army solders in the city. British intelligence claims that separatist reservists from Luhansk with little training and heavy weaponry are being thrown into the fight as cannon fodder to keep Russian troops out of the Ukrainians’ crosshairs.

For all the hype about Russia’s advances over the past month, it’s worth comparing the two maps here for a perspective check. The Russians gained a bit of ground around Sievierodonetsk and the Ukrainians gained a bit of ground around Kharkiv, finally ending the shelling of that city. But that’s about it:

What you can’t see on the map is how the Russians have brutalized Ukrainian towns and cities as part of their offensive. You know about Mariupol but Sievierodonetsk is also mostly rubble now according to reports. Yesterday Politico published a report about other population centers in the Donbas being laid waste. One woman cried that her hometown of Lyman was dying under Russian shelling, prompting her husband to reply that it was already dead. A war that began with Putin dreaming of reconstituting a gleaming empire will end with Russia ruling over a series of ruins, assuming they can hold the territory they’ve already claimed.

For now, whether strategically or out of spite, they’re going to make the war as painful for Ukraine and the world as they can:

I’ll leave you with this clip of Zelensky making what sounds like an outlandish claim, that Russia has abducted and deported some 200,000 Ukrainian children. Ukrainian propaganda? Nope — the Russians admit that 190,000 children from the Donbas have “arrived” in their country. Reports of forcible deportations, i.e. ethnic cleansing, have been streaming in for months now as Moscow tries to Russify the parts of Ukraine it’s hoping to annex. If ever you find yourself wondering “Why do the Ukrainians keep fighting instead of negotiating?”, here’s why.

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