ON DAY 96, of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces are pounding more than 40 towns and villages with artillery and multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) over a wide front in the Donbas region.

This is a grinding and brutal offensive designed to painstakingly extend the Kremlin’s occupation of ground in Luhansk and Donetsk. The Russian military’s strategy is an unimaginative but punishing full-frontal assault on what remains of Ukrainian fixed defences in eastern Ukraine.

In an explicit nod to Russia’s revised political strategy, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has stated that “the liberation of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, recognised by the Russian Federation is an unconditional priority”.

This appears to be Putin’s last-ditch plan for a ‘victory’ in Ukraine after three months of costly and at times disastrous combat operations. For now, it also appears to be the limit of their current military ambitions in Ukraine with Lavrov further stating, for the rest of the territories in Ukraine, ‘the people should decide their own futures in these areas’.

At the beginning of the war on the 24 February, Russia controlled approximately 60% of the Luhansk Oblast. In the last 24 hours or so, Russian troops have entered the strategically important town of Severodonetsk. The towns of Svitlodarsk and Lyman have also been occupied by Russian forces in recent days.

This means that Severodonetsk and its close neighbour Lysychansk are the last two major population centres in Luhansk controlled by Ukrainian forces. If Severodonetsk is taken, Lysychansk will fall and Russian troops would then have the capacity to encircle Ukrainian forces in the area with flanking manoeuvres towards Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.

This would be a nightmare scenario for Ukrainian forces – trapped in dug-in positions and cut off from reinforcements and the supply of weapons from western Ukraine. The battle for Severodonetsk will be a crucial one in the current war for Ukraine.

Putin saving face

Putin’s advances have come at a very high price for Russian forces. Robbed of any battlefield initiative or momentum in the field by Ukraine’s nimble and agile defences, Russia’s military has resorted to an old-school – World War II style – textbook conventional frontal assault.

There is no ‘maskirovka’ or deception plan, the Kremlin is simply throwing as much artillery and troops as they can at Ukraine’s fixed positions. It resembles the ‘scorched earth’ strategy of WW2 battles in Ukraine, with entire population centres razed to the ground.

In a manner similar to the destruction of Mariupol, Severodonetsk has been almost completely destroyed as Russian troops tentatively enter its eastern outskirts. Of a population of 100,000 citizens, fewer than 10,000 remain – trapped in the ruins of the city with its defenders. 90% of the buildings in the town have been damaged, with all of its critical infrastructure obliterated.

In a recurring feature of this war, Putin’s forces have deliberately targeted civilian objects such as housing, schools and hospitals, with over two-thirds of Severodonetsk’s homes completely destroyed. This approach is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and the Laws of Armed Conflict.

Determined dictator

Putin has also paid scant regard to losses among his own troops. In the advance on Severodonetsk last week, the Russian military made nine successive attempts to cross the Siverskyi-Donets river, using pontoon bridges. Each time they were shelled by Ukrainian artillery and each time, Russian officers ordered their engineers and armoured units to repeat the attempt at precisely the same grid location.

It is reported that Russia lost over 80 tanks and armoured fighting vehicles and over 400 troops in this botched operation. As Russian and Ukrainian military losses mount on both sides, Putin’s strategy in Donbas appears to be a dogged, savage and illegal war of attrition that seeks to target and completely destroy civilian population centres in order to ‘liberate’ them.

This strategy has entailed the use of massed artillery and MLRS barrages in advance of armour and supporting infantry moving slowly forward in small bounds. Russia has – literally – thousands of artillery and rocket launching weapon systems, ranging from ‘Tornado’ and ‘Smerch’ MLRS systems to heavy mortars and massive 203mm ‘Pion’ artillery pieces capable of delivering tonnes of high explosive and incendiary munitions into civilian areas and Ukraine’s defensive lines.

These indirect fire systems have ranges of up to 90km for MLRS and up to 50km for some artillery units. The Russians simply adjust fire from a distance, using forward artillery observers on the ground and air assets to pinpoint and concentrate their fire on Ukrainian targets. For now, this has robbed the Ukrainian military of the advantage of their previously highly mobile and imaginative defensive tactics. For now, the Ukrainians must stand and fight and bring the Russians to a halt along a fixed line east of the Dnieper river.

This is the reason why President Zelenskyy has been applying ever greater pressure in demands for the more urgent supply of heavy weapons such as US manufactured M777 155mm howitzers – in order to counter Putin’s grinding pincer movement in Luhansk. If Luhansk falls to Russia in the coming weeks, then Putin will swing his forces south to concentrate on what is left of Donetsk. Renewed combat operations around Kherson – now that Mariupol has been ‘neutralised’ – indicate that Putin’s forces would attempt to link up their forces in Donetsk with those in Luhansk, should it fall in the coming days.

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Cognisant of Putin’s slow and bloody advances in Donbas, some international commentators – including Henry Kissinger – have called upon President Zelenskyy to cede territory to Putin and to negotiate for peace. As the war grinds on, the Kremlin has blockaded Ukraine’s remaining sea ports – trapping millions of tons of grain inside the country and threatening a worldwide famine in vulnerable parts of the developing world. Putin’s strategy in Ukraine – initially floundering in an unsuccessful assault on Kyiv – has settled down into a well-worn pattern of brutality and terror.

What next?

If Putin succeeds in Ukraine, if he can wrest a ‘victory’ of sorts from the destruction and seizure of Donbas, he will survive in office in the Kremlin. In such a scenario, in my opinion, having been ‘humiliated’ to a certain extent in Ukraine, he will accelerate the re-arming and re-equipping of his forces in order to prepare for future, further operations along Russia’s border with Europe. The current battle for the remaining towns in Luhansk, and then what remains of Donetsk will determine the outcome of the war in Ukraine.

The EU needs to support Ukraine by every means at its disposal – through a complete oil embargo on Russia and the supply of all the means necessary for Ukraine to defend itself. This is a war – not just for the EU’s interests – but for the very values and principles that underpin the international rule of law and democracy.

The outcome of this war may well determine the actions and behaviours of the world’s newly emerging superpowers – many of whom eschew democratic values and the rule of law in favour of coercion, propaganda and misinformation and the wanton use of force against their own populations and others.

Our grandparents in Europe have been at this point before. This is a pivotal moment for our generation.

Dr Tom Clonan is an independent Senator and former Captain in the Irish armed forces. He is a security analyst and academic, lecturing in the School of Media in DIT. You can follow him on Twitter.