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The Azov brigade, which leaders say has a culture of ‘mutual respect’, is tasked with repelling relentless Russian attacks as the invaders make most of artillery mismatch

by Dan Sabbagh in Lyman. Photographs by Julia Kochetova Sat 27 Apr 2024 00.00 EDT

Fifteen miles east of the garrison town of Lyman, a desperate fight has been taking place on Ukraine’s eastern front for months. The once verdant Serebryansky pine forest has been reduced to burnt-out stumps, reminiscent of images from the Somme, destroyed amid Russian attacks aimed at eliminating Ukrainian foxholes.

Fearful that the frontline could crack last summer, Ukraine’s commanders deployed the Azov infantry brigade to the sector. Their task was and is to repel what “Maslo”, a 29-year-old staff sergeant with the unit’s first battalion, described as “constant assaults, every day, sometimes for 24 hours”. Occasionally the brigade makes dangerous counterattacks on foot.

Poor visibility, perhaps 30 metres where the wood is thicker, and a mismatch of equipment makes the fight harder. Maslo, whose call sign translates as butter, described a “more or less stable” artillery mismatch of five to one in favour of the Russians, though he believes it is closer to 10 to one in the most intense sectors of the front, such as during the winter battle of Avdiivka, which fell to the invaders in February.

Russian drone attacks are also proliferating, the soldier added, reflecting a successful shift by Moscow towards a war economy. But perhaps the most serious problem the defenders face are Russian glide bombs, air-launched from as far as 70km away by Su-34 and Su-35 jets. These are moderately accurate weapons that, if they happen to land on target, can wreak havoc on targets below.

Makas, a staff sergeant in the second battalion, says “as many as 100 to 150 glide bombs can be launched into a sector a day”, a statement that suggests official Ukrainian military claims that 3,500 hit the frontlines in the first 77 days of the year may be an underestimate. The weapons can carry 500kg or 1.5 tonnes of explosives, the latter of which can “blow a crater 30 metres wide and 7 to 10 metres deep”, he says.

The larger bombs are understandably feared by soldiers on the frontline – and intercepting them or the aircraft that launch them is the task of air defence – of which Ukraine is short – or possibly F-16 fighter jets armed with long-range missiles, although few expect the western jets to be ready, with trained pilots, much before the end of the year, and their final numbers are uncertain.

Ukraine moved up one of its few Patriot air defence systems to the front in February, knocking out 10 Su-34s and two Su-35s, according to its air force – but in early March a forward-deployed system was damaged by a Russian missile, underlying the risky nature of the air-to-ground battle, although it was said by the Pentagon to have been repaired about a week later.

Such imbalances in weaponry, caused by the long hiatus in US military aid that only ended this week and the slow development of European arms production, have begun to affect Ukrainian morale. Senior figures acknowledge privately that mobilising more men to fight is becoming challenging, with some fleeing the country or considering it – while others focus on finding units where commanders will not expose them to unnecessary risks.

It is estimated that Russia had 400,000 soldiers fighting in Ukraine until recently, a figure that is rising to 500,000 – creating an immediate need for more defenders, as well as replacing casualties (the official average of Ukrainian soldiers killed a month is about 1,300 and the number of wounded at least three times that). There is a widespread expectation that Moscow will try to launch a more intense offensive shortly, although there are signs the step-up has already begun. A fortnight ago, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, said “the situation on the eastern front has significantly worsened”, and that a period of dry warmer weather was facilitating new Russian attacks by tanks and armoured vehicles. Ukrainian military intelligence has estimated that 20,000 to 25,000 Russians are massing west of Bakhmut near Chasiv Yar, hoping to seize high ground in the central Donbas – but more significantly there are signs of a 5km Russian bridgehead forming north-west of Avdiivka.

The range of Ukraine’s immediate needs is recognised in the breadth of the equipment supplied in Wednesday’s $1bn package from the US, which include artillery rounds, Stinger handheld anti-air missiles, Javelin anti-tank weapons, and Bradley armoured vehicles. A further £500m package announced by the UK also includes 400 armoured vehicles: a particular problem, Ukrainian medics say, is having enough protected transport to get the wounded away from the battlefield.

In the immediate term, experts believe that it will take further rounds of military aid to reverse Ukraine’s deteriorating fortunes, including at least seven more Patriot anti-missile batteries to protect its cities and suppress bombardment at the front. “So far, this is not a counteroffensive package for Ukraine, and there is no real prospect of a counteroffensive this year. The next year will be tough and it may well be that Ukraine will have to cede more territory before it stabilises,” says Matthew Savill, an analyst with London’s Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) thinktank.

What is hard to evaluate is the damage caused by US Republicans’ withholding of funding for Ukraine, and Europe’s pace of building up industrial support. Although soldiers on the frontline such as Makas report that “10 or 15 Russians are killed for every Ukrainian”, the team at Rusi believe, grimly, that Russia can sustain a casualty rate of about 20,000 to 30,000 month (roughly the current levels) for about another year, allowing Moscow’s forces to attack all along the frontline.

Ukraine, a much smaller country, has to find a way of mobilising more younger people. “The average age of the Ukrainian army is 43,” Savill says, “and that means Ukraine is going to have to mobilise more young people, who they have so far been trying to protect.” By the time western military industrial production peaks towards the end of the year, as predicted by Kyiv, more Ukrainian lives will have been lost – and Savill argues, the rest of 2024 may be about the defenders trying to wear the Russian aggressors out sometime after 2025.

In the woods around Lyman there is a different perspective, however. While a handful of brigades have struggled in the latest phase of fighting, Azov says it has defeated the Russian attackers in the Serebryansky forest. The 5,000-plus strong brigade has shed any far-right associations, relentlessly emphasised in Russian pre-invasion propaganda, and is one of the military’s elite forces, comprised entirely of volunteers. Members say there is a waiting list for recruits, allowing it to pick and choose.

“Tavr” Bohdan Krotevych, Azov’s chief of staff, 31, argues that high morale, unit cohesion and a willingness to allow all ranks to be heard, not necessarily shown elsewhere, was a key to success – contrasting the style with the traditional “old fart” hierarchical model of Soviet command. A culture of “mutual respect” is intended to ensure soldiers’ lives are not wasted and the commander emphasises the young age profile of the brigade, with an average age “on the south side of 35”, adding if you are young “you have attitude, you are competitive, you have stuff to prove”.

High morale and fresh thinking in Ukraine’s better units will not be sufficient to win a war of national survival, and the stop-start nature of western support in practice (despite upbeat statements made by political leaders) frustrates many Ukrainian soldiers. Tavr complains that the west has so far only supplied weapons to produce “a stalemate that is perhaps comfortable for the west, even though civilians keep dying”, noting that at least eight were killed in bombing in and around Dnipro city last week.