“It can now be stated that Russian troops have begun the battle for Donbas,” pronounced Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, late on April 18th. More than three weeks have now passed since Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, abandoned his assault on Kyiv and retreated from northern Ukraine. Now Mr Putin is throwing a large portion of his weary army at eastern Ukraine in the hope of salvaging something from his war. The coming weeks are likely to see the bloodiest battles since Russia first invaded the Donbas region in 2014.
The clashes that intensified on April 18th are “preludes to larger offensive operations”, according to American defence officials. They are probably a mixture of Russian reconnaissance, to establish the strength of Ukrainian defences, and shelling, to soften them up in advance of ground attacks that will follow. Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s security council, says that Russian attacks occurred “along almost the entire front line” in Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv provinces, spanning around 400km in all.
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