With empty trenches, Ukraine faces fierce Russian advance

With intense battles in the east and a new Russian offensive on Kursk, Ukraine faces severe troop shortages, testing the limits of its resilience in the prolonged conflict

As Ukrainian forces fight in the western Russian region of Kursk, they face a new enemy: North Korea’s elite military. On Sunday (5), Ukrainian infantry troops and armored vehicles resumed an offensive in three directions on Kursk, trying to consolidate their position in the center of the Sudzha district, which they had conquered in August.

This Tuesday (7), Ukrainian forces had already occupied at least three villages northeast of Sudzha and inflicted losses on North Korean troops fighting in separate units under Russian command.

“We weakened their ranks – they suffered losses even though Kim did not send ordinary soldiers,” a Ukrainian soldier told Al Jazeera, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

He did not reveal his name, details or exact location of battles, in line with wartime regulations.

South Korean and American officials said Kim sent more than 10,000 elite troops to Kursk. It is understood that hundreds have already been killed at the site.

More than 450 km south of Kursk, another Ukrainian military continues to repel waves of Russian infantry near the important southeastern city of Pokrovsk.

“It seems like they send a new brigade every day,” the soldier told Al Jazeera.

The Russians continue to advance despite a reported lack of tanks and armored vehicles.

“They keep pushing. The only problem they have is the equipment; they cannot use it uncontrollably as they did three or four months ago,” he said.

But the biggest problem his unit – like all of Ukraine’s armed forces – faces is a severe shortage of personnel.

Last week, Ukrainian troops retreated from the eastern town of Kurakhove, which Russian forces claimed control of on Monday.

Kyiv forces also lost a major coal mine near Pokrovsk and may be on the verge of losing Ukraine’s largest lithium deposit, at Shevchenkove.

“The Kurakhove defense facilities were taken over simply because we had no one there,” said one soldier. “The most motivated soldiers have been killed, and the new ones have no training or motivation.”

He also criticized the poor decisions of commanding officers, claiming that they seek to please their superiors and do not value the lives of soldiers.

“I was injured so many times because of the stupidity of commanders,” he said.

Russians looting in Kurakhove

The Russian forces that took Kurakhove are looting abandoned apartments, according to a local resident.

“They are breaking into apartments that were not damaged by the bombings, stealing everything they can carry,” said Olena Basenko, a former saleswoman from Kurakhove who is searching for her elderly aunt, who has refused to leave the city.

“What ‘liberators’ they are,” he commented sarcastically, referring to Moscow’s promise to “liberate” Ukraine from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “neo-Nazi junta” – a Russian claim debunked throughout the war.

Labor shortages in Ukraine have led some analysts to doubt Kyiv’s Kursk offensive.

“Zelenskyy’s strategy is to gather brigades with equipment in the rear only to solemnly lose them at Kursk, gaining 1.5 km of farmland,” Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher at the University of Bremen in Germany, told Al Jazeera.

The units advancing on Kursk could have been used to defend Kurakhove, he argued.

However, others see the Kursk offensive as an opportunity to gain an important strategic advantage.

Ukraine may try to seize a Russian nuclear plant in the town of Kurchatov, about 70 km northeast of Sudzha, and even the regional capital of Kursk, located 30 km away.

If successful, Kurchatov’s conquest could become a significant strategic gain, according to the former deputy chief of the general staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

“We didn’t want to make things worse, but we have to,” Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko told Al Jazeera.

Kyiv could also invade the neighboring Russian region of Bryansk, dealing a severe blow to President Vladimir Putin’s domestic reputation, he said.

“This will be painful for Putin, and if there is an offensive in Bryansk or other regions, he will be forced to reflect,” Romanenko said.

Internal criticism of Putin’s policy

Some Russians ridicule Putin’s policies that led to the first foreign invasion of western Russia since World War II.

“If grandpa in the bunker is so wise, why do we have Ukrainians on Russian land? Something is wrong,” Roman, a 48-year-old Muscovite who served in a tank unit in the 1990s, told Al Jazeera, criticizing the Russian president.

Bryansk, which borders Ukraine, has been repeatedly attacked by two Ukrainian military units made up of pro-Ukrainian fighters of Russian origin.

Romanenko pointed out that Putin’s decision to intensify the offensive in southeastern Ukraine represents a “fiasco” for Donald Trump’s “peace plan”.

“This approach ended in fiasco because Putin rejected the version proposed by the Trump team,” he explained.

Trump offered few details about the plan, but his team said it could include creating a “demilitarized zone” along the current front line, ceding areas occupied by Russia and delaying Ukraine’s membership of NATO.

Ukraine’s maritime drone weapons

At the end of last year, Ukraine won a small victory that could bring major losses to Russian naval bases and civilian ports.

On December 31, Ukrainian maritime drones, unmanned vessels armed with small missiles, attacked Russian helicopters in Sevastopol Bay, the main naval base in annexed Crimea.

Ukraine said it shot down two helicopters, killing all 16 crew.

Moscow did not acknowledge losses but said its forces destroyed four Ukrainian unmanned aircraft and two maritime drones.

The attack demonstrated that maritime drones can wreak havoc on Russian port and naval infrastructure along the Black Sea, said Mitrokhin of the University of Bremen.

Additionally, Kyiv may use maritime drones to attack the Russian navy in the Baltic, Barents and Pacific seas.

“There is so much infrastructure there that it will be difficult to protect it completely, even with containment barriers, let alone on all sides, like in Sevastopol or [no porto da Crimeia de] Feodosiya”, afirmou.

Meanwhile, the ongoing war of attrition tests the economies of Ukraine and Russia.

The Russian economy “partially adapted to the pressure of sanctions [ocidentais]but currently faces an inflationary shock of overheating and slower growth” due to the Central Bank’s high interest rates, said Kyiv-based analyst Aleksey Kusch.

The Ukrainian economy is “in shock” due to the serious destruction of energy infrastructure and a lack of labor, he added.

But hydrocarbon exports help the Russian economy recover from the shock, while Ukraine is kept afloat by Western financial aid.

“It creates a certain parity effect amid resistance to war,” Kusch told Al Jazeera.

With information from Al Jazeera*