Putin advances in Donbas and his soldiers will not take long to conquer the key city of Kostiantynivka

MoscowVladimir Putin has been bothered by the narrative that has emerged in recent weeks, according to which Ukraine is on the verge of turning the tide of the war. “Europeans have the categorically incorrect impression that the situation on the battlefield is changing in favor of the Ukrainian forces,” they say from the Kremlin. The reason is the partially successful effort by Kyiv's troops to stifle Russian logistics on the southeastern front, which opens a window of opportunity for Volodymyr Zelensky. However, in the east, in Donbas, Russia continues to advance and will soon conquer Kostiantynivka, one of the last major towns in the region. The problem is that it is advancing so slowly that the pressure from the warmongering sectors is growing for the Russian president to decree a new mobilization, a hugely unpopular measure that could prove entirely ineffective.

Kostiantínivka is one of the last Ukrainian defensive strongholds in Donetsk and, just as happened in the autumn in Pokrovsk, Russian soldiers have managed to bypass the drone wall with great difficulty and infiltrate the urban area. Currently, the number of Russian troops is so high that the Ukrainian army has no capacity to expel them. “If Ukraine does not send new units, Russia will occupy it in the coming weeks,” predicts military analyst Nikolai Mitrokhin to ARA. The Kremlin's troops are devastating the city and displaying Russian flags to aerial cameras to demonstrate their progress, which is measured in tens of meters and hundreds of deaths each day.

“The problem with Kostiantínivka is the result of Ukraine concentrating troops in other areas,” explains Mitrokhin. The expert does not rule out that Putin will open new fronts in northern Ukraine, in regions like Sumy, Kharkiv, or Chernihiv, taking advantage of the protection of forest foliage, in order to force Zelensky to redistribute forces and not accumulate soldiers in Donetsk. The control of Kostiantínivka would pave the way from the south towards Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, true fortresses of Donbas. Mitrokhin calculates that Russia would be in a position to begin besieging them in the autumn, but believes that the battle for each of these municipalities could last approximately one year. Furthermore, Russian troops have been trying unsuccessfully for nine months to subdue Liman, a town that would allow them to advance from the north towards Sloviansk, as it is a geographically very difficult territory to attack.

Be that as it may, if Ukraine does not manage to completely interrupt supplies to the front line, observers believe that the conflict will continue with the same slow attrition dynamic. “The war will last at least two more years if the Russian economy does not collapse,” Mitrokhin points out. Nor do they believe that the Kremlin has a recruitment problem, as the figures for the first quarter suggested, when new volunteers had fallen by 20% compared to the previous year. “Russia may need 600,000 soldiers to conquer all the territory of Donbas – the analyst points out –. Will it be willing to do so? I have no idea, but the trend is stable: it dedicates time, equipment, and many human lives to it.”

The mobilization dilemmaFaced with this stalemate, however, rumors are multiplying of a forced mobilization that would give the option of saturating Ukrainian lines and definitively tipping the balance. "Those who know say that a fundamental decision has already been made on this matter and that it will take place this autumn," wrote deputy Andrei Gurulyov on Telegram recently, in a message he later attributed to his account being hacked, although it remains published. Philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, one of Russia's most radical voices, advocates transforming “the special military operation” into a “people's war,” like World War II. “One part of the people is already dying, helping and participating in this war, and the other part is not,” he complained recently.

His mention of autumn is not arbitrary, but would be just after the legislative elections, which Putin's party faces with very bad poll numbers. In any case, at least publicly, Russian leaders rule out this scenario. Analysts also maintain that the partial mobilization of 2022 was already a very controversial decision and that now, moreover, they have no need to repeat it nor guarantees that it will be of much use. “A new mobilization does not give the Russian army a great prospect, it will not change anything – says Mitrokhin. The problem is not that they don't have enough soldiers, but that they don't have enough weapons and vehicles for these soldiers.”

From their point of view, the most likely scenario is that the Kremlin will resort to a “covert mobilization,” a system that is already being carried out far from large urban centers. This involves, for example, coercing local employers to send a quota of workers to the front or pressuring poor migrants trying to legally settle in Russia to enlist if they do not want to be deported or imprisoned. In recent days, an unusual scene has also occurred in Russia, in Penza: uniformed men forcibly putting recruits who had tried to evade military service into vans, aware that it is an almost certain ticket to Ukraine.