Other than that, the Russian forces are also conducting offensive operations in the vicinity of Chasiv Yar city, which are very important to bring them closer to the city of Kostyantynivka from the northeast direction. A Ukrainian brigade commander from the Chasiv Yar area reported that the greatest challenge for the Ukrainian forces operating in this region comes from the Russian first-person view (FPV) drones.
Over the city of Kostyantynivka itself, Russian attack drones appear in the sky every 10-15 minutes, according to the Donetsk police.
Moreover, per the claims by a Russian military blogger on July 1st, the Russian forces control key heights along the Toretsk-Kurdyumivka-Chasiv Yar line, which makes it more difficult for Ukraine to defend Kostyantynivka that is situated in the lowlands.
Overall, the Russians continue to rely on the encirclement strategy that they implemented during their advances in Avdiivka, which entails surrounding Ukrainian positions from three directions and then attacking them with attack drones, glide bombs, artillery and mortars, etc., to compel the Ukrainian forces to retreat.
Risk Of The Ukrainian Front Collapsing
As stated earlier, the problem for Ukraine is numbers. Its war effort against Russia relies mostly on conscription, because of which, the Ukrainian military has been struggling to maintain its strength recently, both quantitatively as well as qualitatively, as it has had to enlist conscripts who are less willing and of inferior quality compared to those recruited in the initial one to two years of the conflict.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, several thousands of Ukrainians eagerly volunteered to partake in the war effort to defend their country against this invasion, however, since 2024, most of Ukraine’s population is trying to avoid military service, per a recent article authored by a former Ukrainian Army officer who goes by the moniker, ‘Tatarigami’.
Moreover, according to Tatarigami, new recruits are also trying to avoid combat positions because of three primary reasons: Commanders’ disregard for value of soldiers’ lives, few opportunities for rest from the frontlines, and inadequate planning.
Instead, they opt to fulfil support roles such as doctors, supply drivers, helicopter crews, drone teams, engineers, and communications staff, which are no less important but to defend a territory or re-capture lost territory, an army needs sufficient number of infantry troops.
So, to make up for infantry shortages, the Ukrainian military began pulling people from support roles which hallowed its support units while forcing untrained soldiers who lack even basic infantry skills to assume combat roles.
Also, this practice of reassigning personnel from support roles to combat roles has undermined Ukraine’s recruitment efforts as well according to Tatarigami, who points out that potential recruits who have seen several specialists end up as basic riflemen soon after completing their technical training, become skeptical of the Ukrainian military’s advertisements for positions of FPV drone or Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) operators.
Tatarigami also points out that several of the Ukrainian Army’s new recruits have serious health issues, mental health problems, or substance dependencies, and therefore, instead of bolstering the military’s combat strength, they often drain resources while creating a false impression of military preparedness. This results in paperwork showing units completely staffed but lacking real combat capability.
Conversely, the Russian military is said to have relied exclusively on volunteers for its war effort in Ukraine, whose losses or injuries are considerably less likely to affect the overall morale compared to those of the conscripts.
Most importantly, Russia conscripts a pool of soldiers annually regardless of whether there is an ongoing war, however, thus far, it has not required these conscripts for its war effort in Ukraine, and experts suggest that its armed forces still seem to possess enough volunteers to persist in their operations in Ukraine without tapping into the yearly conscription pool.
Another problem for Ukraine is that it lacks the weapons and equipment to properly arm a force constituting sufficient number of troops needed to persist in its ongoing war with Russia. Ukraine’s war effort against Russia has been heavily dependent on military and financial aid from its Western allies, with majority of it coming from the United States (US).
In recent months, considerable ambiguity has emerged about the continuity of the US’ security aid to Ukraine in the future. Recently, the Pentagon decided to pause shipments of some weapons to Ukraine because of concerns about its own stockpiles of these weapons dwindling.
Per the media reports, these weapons included two dozen PAC-2 missiles for Patriot air defense systems, over two dozen Stinger air defense systems, precision artillery rounds, drones, Hellfire missiles and over 90 AIM air-to-air missiles that Ukrainian fires from its F-16 fighter jets.
However, in what appears to be a sudden reversal of this decision, the US President Donald Trump said on July 7th that the US is going to send some more weapons to Ukraine for it to be able to defend itself without specifying what exact weapons or type of weapons are going to be provided.
Shortly after, Pentagon also confirmed that it will resume weapons shipments to Ukraine at Trump’s direction while also maintaining that its framework for the US President to evaluate military shipments worldwide continues as part of “America First” defense priorities, meaning there remains possibility of weapons shipments to Ukraine getting discontinued in the future if they pose a risk the US’ own military readiness.
Also, in March, following the heated Oval Office argument between the US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the US temporarily halted all its military and intelligence aid to Ukraine for a week.
So, with uncertainties surrounding the US’ security assistance to Ukraine in the future, European countries like the United Kingdom (UK), France, Germany, and the Netherlands have stepped up their pledged support, however, European assistance will not suffice to fill the gap left by the US.
Russia, on the other hand, has its own sizeable defense industry which it continues to expand. For instance, Russia recently managed to increase its drone production to over one-hundred drones per day, contributing to the intensified drone attacks on Ukrainian cities in recent months.
While Ukraine with the help of investment from its Western allies, has also managed to expand its defense production by ten times, it cannot match up to the size of military industrial mobilization of Russia.
At a time when the crisis in Ukraine has turned into a war of attrition entailing intense use of ammunition for both defensive and offensive purposes, this disparity in respective defense production capabilities of Ukraine and Russia is bound to have substantial impact on the ongoing conflict between the two countries.
For instance, as of 2024, Russia was producing 250,000 artillery munitions per month, or about 3 million a year, per NATO’s intelligence assessments of Russian defense production, which is three times as compared to the collective capacity of the US and Europe to produce only about 1.2 million munitions per year in 2024.
Also, with the US’ military assistance to Ukraine having become uncertain in recent months, Europe cannot realistically be expected to match up to Russia’s rate of production, meaning Ukraine’s struggles to maintain its artillery stockpiles are poised to increase further, potentially resulting in severe shortage of artillery munitions for its armed forces along the entire frontline.
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