Author: John Hanno

The New Voice of Ukraine

How Russia’s maritime behavior is changing

May 13, 2022

As of May 10, the Mediterranean Sea remains an operational area for the same group of vessels that was stationed there as of February 7.

Therefore, there have been no substantial changes in that region so far. This group includes 13 ships and 5 complementary vessels of four Russian military fleets, including 9 rocket launcher ships.

Read also: Putin has become a problem. The main indicator of Russia’s defeat

This situation occurred after Turkey, a NATO member, passed a decision on February 27 to ban any military vessels from moving between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. The ban includes ships of NATO countries that are not the Black Sea actors.

At the end of 2021 and at the beginning of 2022, Russia relocated 20 military vessels from the Mediterranean area to the Black Sea, including 14 ships subordinated to its Black Sea Military Fleet, 3 subordinated to Northern Military Fleet and 3 from the Baltic Sea Military Fleet.

What was happening in February is this: Russia’s Black Sea Military Fleet managed to relocate a large number of vessels to the Black Sea operational area a couple of weeks before the invasion of Ukraine was launched. For that purpose, Russian Federation used the assets of its Northern, Baltic, and Pacific fleet groups.

Besides that, Russia relocated 7 marine infantry vessels from the Mediterranean, including 6 big ones, that were previously components of Northern and Baltic fleet groups.

Overall, as of February 24, Russia had as many as 13 major marine infantry ships in the Black Sea. However, one of them needed repairs. After March 24, when Ukraine’s Armed Forces destroyed one of them and damaged another two, only 9 of those ships are left.

Because Russia has a shortage of major military vessels able to support marine infantry assaults with shelling, it is unable to conduct a major offensive operation in the Odesa region. Still, a minor local “adventure” with the participation of marines is still possible – in the Dniester area, for example.

Read also: Russian landing ship Orsk destroyed in Berdyansk

As of today, the Black Sea operational area also hosts two rocket launcher frigates and three corvettes, each of which are equipped 8 rockets – so that’s 40 rockets overall. None of these ships has any stores of rockets for further use, so they would need to go back to base to renew their supplies.

In addition, Russia has 4 submarines there at their disposal, with 4 rockets each. All in all, Russia is able to use as many as 56 rockets in a major attack.

After the elimination of the Moskva cruiser, Russia’s potential for shelling Ukraine with cruise missiles hasn’t changed much. Moskva had as many as 16 of those missiles, whose purpose was to targeting land structures. However, Kalibr rockets, deployed on other Russian military vessels, can be used for both purposes – shelling land-based targets, or destroying Ukrainian ships.

So what was the purpose of eliminating the Moskva cruiser? The reason is because it was a flagship for anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense systems.

It hosed 64 S300 rockets – that’s a very impressive shield for protection from the air. Now, when Russia doesn’t have that shield at all in the Black Sea, it has to keep its own military vessels further from the coast. At the same time, the Russian Federation is trying to engage its submarines, so they would have more action. They are able to launch their rockets while being submerged as deeply as 30-40 meters below sea level.

The Crimean peninsula, annexed by the Russian Federation in 2014, has its Kerch bridge, which is actively used for furthering hostilities against Ukraine. It will be used for such a purpose until its destroyed.

The Kerch bridge is a strategic asset. Why? Let’s compare. How much time do you need to transfer a tank brigade (that’s several trains with 50 carriages each) via a railroad bridge? And how many days do you need to do that using a ferry that is able to take only as few as 10 carriages in a single trip?

The Neptun missile is the only thing we have to damage the Kerch bridge. It can be operated from a distance of 280-300 kilometers. To hit the target, we would need to launch the missile from, say, the Zaporizhzhya region, from the frontline there, while it is still not too unrealistic. This is the way it is now.

But if we had better missiles that could be launched from a longer distance, that’s a totally different thing.

The Telegraph

Ukraine morning briefing: Five developments as Kyiv intelligence chief says war will be over by Christmas

Our Foreign Staff – May 13, 2022

The European Union has announced plans to give Ukraine an additional 500 million euros (£425 million) to buy heavy weapons.

Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov welcomed the pledge but admitted his country was entering “new, long-term phase of the war.”

Here’s what happened overnight – and you can follow the latest updates in our live blog.

1. Ukraine intelligence chief: war will be over by Christmas

The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence has claimed that the war will be over by Christmas and Vladimir Putin could soon be removed from power in a coup.

Major General Kyrylo Budanov has told Sky News that the war is going so well that it will reach a turning point by the middle of August.

Gen Budanov, who correctly predicted earlier this year that Russia would invade, also claimed that Putin is in a “very bad psychological and physical condition and he is very sick”.

He said the war would “lead to the change of leadership of the Russian Federation” and claimed the “process has already been launched and they are moving into that way”.

When asked if a coup was underway, he responded: “Yes. They are moving in this way and it is impossible to stop it.”

2. Georgian region holds vote on joining Russia

The leader of the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia has announced that a referendum will be held in July on joining Russia.

Russia has exercised effective control over the region since fighting a brief war with Georgia in 2008. Russia and a handful of other countries recognise South Ossetia as an independent state, but most of the world still considers it to be part of Georgia.

“We did it!” South Ossetian leader Anatoly Bibilov wrote on Telegram on Friday in announcing that he had signed a decree setting the referendum for July 17.

“In legalese, we fulfilled yet another important legal requirement,” he said. “And in normal language, we took a life-changing step – we are going home, we are going to Russia.”

About a month into Russia’s war with Ukraine, Mr Bibilov said South Ossetia would take the legal steps necessary to join Russia.

3. Negotiations underway for evacuations from Azovstal

Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday night that talks with Russia on getting wounded defenders out of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol were very complex, adding Kyiv was using influential intermediaries.

Russian forces have been constantly bombarding the steelworks in the southern port of Mariupol, the last bastion of hundreds of Ukrainian defenders in a city almost completely controlled by Russia after more than two months of a siege.

Kyiv has insisted there is no military solution to the stand-off and proposes evacuating 38 of the most severely wounded defenders. If Moscow allows them out, Ukraine says it will release a number of Russian prisoners of war.

“At the moment very complex negotiations are underway on the next phase of the evacuation mission – the removal of the badly wounded, medics. We are talking about a large number of people,” Mr Zelensky said in a late night address.

4. US and Russia hold high level talks for first time since invasion

Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, spoke with Lloyd Austin, the US secretary of defence on Friday after months of refusing direct contact with his American counterpart.

The call, initiated by Mr Austin, marked the highest level American contact with a Russian official since the invasion in late February. Over the past few months, Pentagon officials have repeatedly said that Russian leaders have declined to take calls from Mr Austin and Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

A senior US defence official said that while Mr Austin believes the hour-long conversation with Mr Shoigu was important in the effort to keep lines of communication open, it did not resolve any “acute issues” or lead to any change in Russian policy.

5. Europe could cap gas prices

The European Commission wants to waive EU competition rules to allow governments to cap prices for consumers in the event of a complete outage of Russian gas supplies, German newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported on Saturday, citing a commission document on “short-term energy market interventions”.

According to the document, European Union member states should be allowed to regulate consumer prices for a transitional period to protect them from spiking even before an acute shortage, Welt reported.

“The financing of this intervention requires significant sums,” the newspaper quoted the document as saying.

In March, the EU warned that seeking to cap wholesale gas prices would cause problems and undermine efforts to shift to green energy.

The European Commission is due to unveil a detailed plan this month to quit Russian fossil fuels by 2027, in response to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which supplies 40 per cent of EU gas.

Listen to the latest episode of our daily Ukraine podcast

Ukrayinska Pravda

“We do not intend to be martyrs”: fighter from Azovstal addressing Ukrainians

Alyona Mazurenko – May 13, 2022

Defender of Ukraine from the Azov Regiment, Davyd Khimik, called on citizens to continue informational work. He has said that Ukrainian fighters are full of courage and are holding the line, but they dream of seeing relatives, starting their own families and eating normally.

Source: Davyd Khimik on Telegram

Quote: “While there was no mobile service, I played over all my life in my head, reminiscing about my childhood, places where I have been, different situations that stuck in my memory. Everything emerged before my eyes like in a movie.”

“I often hear guys saying that when they leave, they will get married and have children. Probably, these are the main plans of all those who have not yet had time to do this.”

“Guys who already have wives and children cry and smile simultaneously when they get a chance to see a video with their children.”

“It is interesting to watch, these are feelings that are impossible to convey – you feel the flow of life. I’ve always been a person sitting in the corner and watching everyone from the sidelines.”

“We are still full of courage and hold the line, we hold theline of defence for the whole country.”

“The enemy is trying to seize Azovstal every day, –  bombing with aircraft, artillery (with everything they’ve got), but even in the most terrible conditions we fight back and they, like cowardly dogs, flee from their positions.”

“We do not intend to be martyrs,  we are fighting for our lives as well, and we are waiting for support.”

Details: Davyd Khimik also thanked Ukrainians who are trying to help the defenders with information: “Keep on doing what you do. Support us with information. Shout to everyone about us. You are great.”

Quote: “I want my friends to see their children again and smell the scent of  their wives.”

“And I just want the usual – a sandwich with a big piece of boiled sausage and ryazhenka with dried apricots by ‘Prostokvashino.’ Everything will be fine, we will definitely get back.”

Read more: Face of “Azov. Steel”. Stories about the defenders of Mariupol

Background:

• The Ministry for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine states that negotiations are underway, with Turkey, the UN and the ICRC serving as mediators, on the evacuation of military personnel from Azovstal. Critically injured personnel will be evacuated on a first priority basis.
• Ukraine wants a document to be signed elaborating how exactly the evacuation from Azovstal will be handled. Preparations for signing such a document are underway.
• The Ukrainian team is currently negotiating with regard to only 38 seriously wounded (incapacitated) fighters. If it succeeds in exchanging these 38, ‘we will take the next step.”
• Russian aggressors have ruled out the possibility of extracting Ukrainian servicemen from Mariupol by sea to a neutral state. They have also said that they now have free rein, since all civilians have left the territory of Mariupol’s Azovstal plant.
• Turkey made an offer to Russia that it would relocate Ukrainian troops from Mariupol and guarantee that they would not return to the frontline again until the end of the war, but would remain in Turkey.
• On 11 May, the Deputy Prime Minister announced that the Ukrainian side had offered to exchange the severely wounded Ukrainian servicemen who remained at Azovstal for captured Russian servicemen.
• Vereshchuk also explained that, as of now, it is impossible to lift the blockade of Azovstal by military means.

Business Insider

Ukrainian volunteer fighters use a Russian tank nicknamed ‘Bunny’ against Russian forces

Lauren Frias – May 13, 2022

• Ukrainian fighters used a captured tank nicknamed “Bunny” against its previous owners, the Russians.
• The T-80 tank has destroyed dozens of Russian vehicles and several tanks in the past several weeks.
• On May 9, Ukraine mocked Moscow’s “Victory Day” with a parade featuring captured Russian tanks.

Ukrainian volunteer forces have been using a captured T-80 tank nicknamed “Bunny” against the machine’s previous owners — the Russian army.

The tank was built two years ago and, up until March of this year, was controlled by Russian forces, according to CNN’s Sam Kiley, who met with the volunteer fighters in Ukraine.

A Ukrainian soldier identified solely as Alex, a former software engineer who used to live in the country’s second-largest city of Kharkiv, said he was on a sniper mission when he discovered the abandoned tank in a field in March — just eight days into the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kiley reported.

“This is like my personal tank. I am [the] tank commander and tank owner,” Alex told Kiley in an interview, adding that the “slightly modernized” tank features an auto-loader and can “shoot more advanced, better rounds,” including guided missiles.

In March, “Bunny” destroyed two dozen Russian military vehicles and several tanks, Kiley told CNN.

Ukrainian and Western officials said earlier this week that Russian forces appear to be withdrawing from the Kharkiv region, The New York Times reported. It was a significant setback for the Russian army since its retreat from Kyiv in early April. UK defense officials cited Russia’s “inability to capture key Ukrainian cities” and “heavy losses” as the reason behind the withdrawal.

Earlier this week, Ukraine mocked Russia’s annual “Victory Day” military celebration in Moscow by hosting their own “parade” featuring captured Russian tanks, “ruining the holiday for the occupiers,” the Ukrainian Defense Ministry wrote in a tweet.

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered an address during the Russian “Victory Day” celebration on Monday, calling Ukraine and its leaders “Nazis” but did not mention a declaration of war following warnings from Western officials.

“The West was preparing for the invasion of Russia. NATO was creating tensions at the borders. They did not want to listen to Russia. They had other plans,” Putin said in his Victory Day speech. “You are fighting for the motherland, for its future, so that no one forgets the lessons of World War II, so that there is no place in the world for executioners, punishers, and Nazis.”

Business Insider

Millions of people could die in a global food crisis unless Putin stops blockading Black Sea ports, UN food boss warns

Sophia Ankel – May 13, 2022

• Russia has either blocked or attacked most of Ukraine’s seaports.
• A UN official told CNN Thursday that “millions” will die if Russia doesn’t open Black Sea ports.
• Ukraine is one of the world’s top agricultural exporters, providing around 12% of the world’s grain.

The head of the United Nations World Food Program pleaded with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to open the Black Sea ports before “millions” of people die of hunger, CNN reported.

“Millions of people around the world will die because these ports are being blocked,” David Beasley said at a conference Thursday, per CNN.

When asked what he would say directly to Putin, Beasley said: “If you have any heart at all for the rest of the world, regardless of how you feel about Ukraine, you need to open up those ports.”

Beasley said that the Ukrainian city of Odesa and other ports needed to be operational within the next 60 days to prevent a global food crisis, CNN reported.

“World leaders have got to put pressure on Russia in such a way that we can have absolute neutrality to move supplies in and out of Odesa,” he said.

Russia has blocked hundreds of ships containing Ukrainian grain exports in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov since the start of its invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

The city of Odesa — which has the largest Ukrainian seaport — has also come under regular Russian bombardment, The Guardian reported.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday urged the international community to immediately take measures to end the Russian blockade.

“Without our agricultural exports, dozens of countries in different parts of the world are already on the brink of food shortages,” Zelenskyy told reporters after a visit from European Council President Charles Michel, The Times reported.

“And over time, the situation can become downright terrible … This is a direct consequence of Russian aggression, which can be overcome only together — by all Europeans, by the whole free world,” he added.

Ukraine is one of the world’s top agricultural exporters. It exports more than 12% of the world’s wheat and almost half of its sunflower oil, The Times reported.

Ukrayinska Pravda

Azovstal shelling lasted all night, the Russian invaders storm the plant buildings The Special Operations Detachment “Azov”

Denys Karlovskyi May 13, 2022

SVIATOSLAV PALAMAR, CALL SIGN “KALYNA” IN THE BUNKERS OF AZOVSTAL. PHOTO: THE AZOV REGIMENT

Throughout the night of 13 May, the Russian invaders bombarded the Azovstal territory from artillery and aircraft; the metallurgical plant is currently being stormed by Russian infantry on armoured vehicles.

Source: Deputy commander of the Azov Regiment Sviatoslav Palamar, call sign “Kalyna” in comments to Ukrainska pravda

Quote from Kalyna: “The shelling continued all night. Aviation and artillery shelling.

The storm of the plant by infantry continues. That is, the infantry is storming with armored vehicles, tanks and artillery.”

Background:

• On the morning of 13 May, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and adviser to the mayor of Mariupol Petro Andriushchenko confirmed that Russian infantry continue to storm the Azovstal plant.
• Last night, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that negotiations were currently underway with the Russian invaders on the evacuation of the seriously wounded. The International Committee of the Red Cross is ready to evacuate.
• Despite the devastating shelling and Russian blockade of exits from Azovstal’s underground bunkers, Ukrainian defenders continue to inflict significant losses on the Russian occupying forces in terms of personnel and equipment.
• The Russian occupiers refused the extraction of the defenders of Mariupol by sea to a neutral country. They also said that after all the civilians were taken out of the bunkers, they supposedly had their hands “untied“.

Reuters

Ukrainian forces thwart Russians at river as fight shifts to Donbas

Jonathan Landay – May 12, 2022

DERGACHI, Ukraine (Reuters) -Ukrainian forces destroyed parts of a Russian armoured column as it tried to cross a river in the Donbas region, video from Ukraine’s military showed on Friday, as Moscow appeared to be refocusing its assault in the east after a new pushback by Kyiv.

Ukraine has driven Russian troops away from the second-largest city of Kharkiv in the fastest advance since Kremlin forces pulled away from Kyiv and the northeast over a month ago, although Moscow is still bombarding villages north of Kharkiv.

The city, which had been under fierce bombardment, has been quiet for at least two weeks and Reuters journalists have confirmed Ukraine now controls territory stretching to the Siverskyi Donets River, around 40 km (25 miles) to the east.

Some 10 km (six miles) north of the city, firefighters doused smouldering wreckage in Dergachi after what local officials said was an overnight Russian missile attack on the House of Culture, used to distribute aid. Volunteers inside were trying to salvage packages of baby diapers and formula.

“I can’t call it anything but a terrorist act,” the mayor, Vyacheslav Zadorenko, told Reuters. “They wanted to hit the base where we store provisions and create a humanitarian catastrophe.”

Another missile had slammed into the building on Thursday and Russian shelling had wounded a staff member at a clinic and killed a young couple in their home, he said.

Russia, which denies targeting civilians, said its forces had shot down a Ukrainian Su-27 aircraft in the Kharkiv region and disabled the Kremenchuk oil refinery in central Ukraine.

It was not immediately possible to verify the reports.

Southeast of Kharkiv, Britain said Ukraine had stopped Russian forces crossing the Siverskyi Donets river west of Severodonetsk. Footage released by Ukrainian Airborne Forces Command appeared to show several burnt out military vehicles near segments of a partially submerged bridge and many other damaged or abandoned vehicles, including tanks, nearby.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report, or when or where the clash took place.

The British defence ministry said Russia was investing significant military effort near Severodonetsk and Izium, and trying to break through towards Sloviansk and Kramatorsk to complete their takeover of Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region.

Russian-backed separatists said they had taken the Zarya chemical plant in Rubizne near Severodonetsk.

The Kremlin calls its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine a “special military operation” to demilitarise a neighbour threatening its security. Ukraine says it poses no threat to Russia and that the deaths of thousands of civilians and destruction of cities and towns show that Russia is waging a war of aggression.

CHILDREN

Ukraine accused Russia of forcibly deporting more than 210,000 children since its invasion on Feb. 24, saying they were among 1.2 million Ukrainians transferred against their will.

The Kremlin says people have come to Russia to escape fighting.

In Kyiv, a court began hearing the first case of what Ukraine says are more than 10,000 possible war crimes; a Russian soldier is accused of murdering a civilian soon after the invasion. Moscow has accused Kyiv of staging such crimes.

In the southern port of Mariupol, Russian forces intensified their bombardment of the Azovstal steelworks, the last bastion of Ukrainian defenders in a city almost completely controlled by Russia after a siege of more than two months.

Reuters video showed explosions and thick smoke on Thursday and Ukrainian fighters released footage showing gunbattles. Some of the civilians evacuated recently from tunnels under the plant where they had taken shelter described terrifying conditions.

“Every second was hellish,” 51-year-old nurse Valentyna Demyanchuk told Reuters.

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk told 1+1 television negotiations were underway for the evacuation of wounded troops.

RUSSIAN SHIP SET ALIGHT

Renewed fighting around Snake Island in recent days could help Ukraine resume grain exports vital to world supplies, some of which are now being shipped by rail.

“There are 25 million tonnes of grain currently blocked in the Ukrainian port of Odesa, which means food for millions of people in the world that is urgently needed,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said.

Ukraine said it had damaged a Russian navy logistics ship near Snake Island, a small but strategic outpost that Ukrainian military intelligence said allows control of civilian shipping. Russia’s defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Satellite imagery from Maxar, a private U.S.-based company, showed the aftermath of what it said were probable missile attacks on a Russian landing craft near the island, which became famous for the foul-mouthed defiance of its Ukrainian defenders early in the invasion.

NATO EXPANSION

In Germany, Foreign ministers from the G7 group of rich nations met to discuss a planned EU embargo on Russian oil as well as fears the conflict could spill over into Moldova.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the meeting he hoped EU holdout Hungary would agree to the oil embargo and asked the G7 to hand over Russian assets to help Ukraine rebuild.

“We are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars. Russia must pay,” he told reporters.

A day after Russia’s northeastern neighbour Finland committed to applying to join NATO, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said membership for her country would have a stabilising effect and benefit countries around the Baltic sea.

Joining the 30-nation Western military alliance would end the neutrality the two states maintained throughout the Cold War and further the expansion of NATO that Putin said his invasion of Ukraine aimed to prevent. NATO member Turkey said it did not support the idea, throwing doubt over the process.

Moscow called Finland’s announcement hostile and threatened retaliation, including unspecified “military-technical” measures, but said a newspaper report the Kremlin might cut gas supplies to Finland was mostly likely a “hoax”.

Russian supplies of energy to Europe remain Moscow’s biggest source of funds and Europe’s biggest source of heat and power.

(Additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Natalia Zinets, Tom Balmforth and Reuters bureaux; Writing by Stephen Coates, Simon Cameron-Moore and Philippa Fletcher; Editing by Nick Macfie and Raissa Kasolowsky)

The Week

Ukraine’s ‘hawk and mouse’ Kharkiv counteroffensive is nearing Russia’s border, threatening supply lines

Peter Weber, Senior editor – May 12, 2022

A Ukrainian counteroffensive north and east of Kharkiv has pushed Russian forces mostly out of shelling range of Ukraine’s second-largest city, under near-constant attack since Moscow tried to surround it at the beginning of its invasion. Ukraine’s armed forces now regularly report recapturing towns and villages from retreating Russian troops.

The war in the Kharkiv region, costly to both sides, is “now a game of hawk and mouse, where each side’s drones circle constantly, trying to pinpoint the enemy’s tanks and guns, for targeting by artillery,” BBC correspondent Quentin Sommerville reports from one newly recaptured village.

The fight has mostly involved the two sides “lobbing artillery shells at one another, sometimes from dozens of miles away,”  New York Times correspondent, Michael Schwirtz reports from the Kharkiv front lines. “But at some points along the zigzagging eastern front, the combat becomes a vicious and intimate dance, granting enemy forces fleeting glimpses of one another as they jockey for command of hills and makeshift redoubts in towns and villages blasted apart by shells.”

“Ukrainian gains, modest for now, could have strategic implications for Russia’s war in the Donbas to the southeast,” the BBC’s Sommerville reports. Ukrainian forces have pushed Russian lines within a handful of miles from Russia’s borders in some places — Ukrainian shelling killed a Russian civilian in a village six miles into Russia, the governor of Belgorod region said — threatening to cut off the main ground supply routes for Russia’s eastern offensive.

“Russia’s prioritization of operations in the Donbas has left elements deployed in the Kharkiv Oblast vulnerable to the mobile, and highly motivated, Ukrainian counter-attacking force,” Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in an early Thursday intelligence update. Russia “has reportedly withdrawn units from the region to reorganize and replenish its forces following heavy losses,” and “once reconstituted,” they will likely deploy to “protect the western flank of Russia’s main force concentration and main supply routes for operations in the vicinity of Izium.”

As residents return to the recaptured villages, “many have been shocked by the scale of destruction,” the Times reports. “Cars have been blown to pieces. Homes have been shattered by heavy artillery. … Bodies are scattered around the once peaceful town.” And as soon as the Russians leave, forensic investigators come in to document Russian war crimes, The Washington Post reports. “Imagine an episode of CSI — and there’s a war going on, too.”

The New York Times

Life in a Ukrainian Unit: Diving for Cover, Waiting for Western Weapons

Andrew E. Kramer – May 12, 2022

PRYVILLIA, Ukraine — Through binoculars, the Ukrainian soldiers can see the Russian position far in the distance. But the single artillery weapon they operate at a small, ragtag outpost on the southern steppe has insufficient range to strike it.

These circumstances have imposed a numbingly grim routine on the Ukrainians, who are pounded daily by Russian artillery salvos while having no means to fight back. Every few hours, they dive into trenches to escape shells that streak out of the sky.

“They have our position fixed, they know where we are,” said Sgt. Anatoly Vykhovanets. “It’s like we are in the palm of their hand.”

As President Volodymyr Zelenskyy makes almost daily pleas to the West for heavier artillery, it is positions like the one here on the west bank of the Dnieper River that most illustrate how critical that weaponry is for Ukraine. Military analysts say the battle now is riding not so much on the skill or bravery of Ukrainian soldiers, but on the accuracy, quantity and striking power of long-range weapons.

The artillery capability of the two armies near Pryvillia is so lopsided in Russia’s favor that Ukrainian officials have specifically highlighted the region to Western officials and member of the U.S. Congress in their appeals for more military support.

In response, Western allies have been trying to rush artillery systems and associated equipment into Ukraine, and it is starting to arrive. But not as quickly as Ukrainian officials have wanted, especially in places like this small outpost in the south.

The United States announced plans to send 90 M777 howitzers, a system capable of shooting 25 miles with pinpoint accuracy, but it was only this week that the first one in this region was fired in combat, according to a video the military provided to a Ukrainian news outlet.

Other American weapons Ukraine is counting on include drones for spotting targets and correcting artillery fire and tracked armored vehicles used for towing howitzers into position even under fire.

On Monday, President Joe Biden signed the Lend-Lease Act, which would allow transfers of additional American weaponry to Ukraine, and on Tuesday night the House of Representatives approved a $40 billion aid package.

But for now at the outpost of Ukraine’s 17th Tank Regiment, in a tree line between two fields, the most soldiers can do is try to survive.

To do so, they appoint a listener around the clock. He stands, like a prairie dog on guard, in the center of the unit, listening for the distant boom of Russian outgoing artillery. The warning is “air!” Soldiers have about three seconds to dive into a trench before shells hit.

The Ukrainian army does fire back from artillery operating to the rear of this position but has too few weapons to dislodge the Russian gun line.

Throughout the war, Ukraine’s army has demonstrated extraordinary success in outmaneuvering and defeating Russian forces in the north, relying on stealth and mobility to execute ambushes against a bigger, better equipped army. But in southern Ukraine, in an area of pancake-flat farm fields cut by irrigation canals, the Ukrainians are fighting a different sort of war.

On the steppe, the swirling, fluid front lines of the two armies are spaced miles or dozens of miles apart, over an expanse of gigantic fields of yellow rapeseed, green winter wheat, tilled under black earth and tiny villages.

Occasionally, small units slip into this buffer zone to skirmish, and to call in artillery strikes on one another, using sparse tree lines as cover. “There is no place to hide,” said the commander of a reconnaissance brigade who is deploying units into these fights. He asked to be identified only by his nickname, Botsman.

“It’s like looking down at a chess board,” he said. “Each side sees the other sides’ moves. It just depends on what striking force you have. Everything is seen. The only question is, can you hit that spot?”

Soldiers on both sides call artillery guns that can do just that by a nickname, “the gods of war.”

Ukraine entered the war at a disadvantage. Russia’s 203-millimeter Peony howitzers, for example, fire out to about 24 miles while Ukraine’s 152-millimeter Geocent guns fire 18 miles. (Soviet legacy artillery systems, used by both sides, are named for flowers; Carnation and Tulip guns are also in play in the war.)

That’s why Ukrainians so desperately wants the American howitzers; their 25-mile range while firing a GPS-guided precision round would, in some places, tilt the advantage slightly back to them.

“The Russians have two advantages now, artillery and aviation,” said Mykhailo Zhirokhov, the author of a book about artillery combat in the war against Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, “Gods of Hybrid War.” “Ukraine needs artillery and anti-aircraft missiles. These are the critically important on the front.”

The Ukrainian military has insufficient quantity of even medium-range artillery, such as weapons that might hit back at the Russian gun line harassing the Ukrainian unit about 9 miles away. The Russians are in a rock quarry, visible through binoculars as a gray smudge in the distance.

Hundreds of craters pock the fields all around. The soldiers operate a short-range, anti-tank artillery gun of little use against the Russian position that is out of range.

But the soldiers still serve a purpose: They can stop a tank assault using their short-range anti-tank artillery weapon, preventing Russian advances — so long as they endure the daily barrages. So far, nobody in the unit has been wounded or killed. That leaves the front in stasis, following two months in which Ukrainian forces advanced about 40 miles in this area.

Russia cannot capitalize on its artillery superiority to advance. Its tactic for attacking on the open plains is to hammer the opposing positions with artillery, then send armored vehicles forward on a maneuver called “reconnaissance to contact” aimed at overwhelming what remains of the defensive line.

But because of Ukraine’s wealth of anti-armor missiles and weapons, Russia cannot advance and seize ground.

Ukraine, meanwhile, also cannot advance, though its tactics differ. The Ukrainian military relies on small unit infantry with armored vehicles playing only supporting roles. Though Ukraine could seize ground, it could not hold it or use it for logistical support for further advances, as any new territory would remain under Russian bombardment.

The planned Ukrainian advance in this area depends on the arrival of the M777 howitzers and other long-range Western artillery that can hit the Russian artillery in the rear. Then, Ukrainian infantry might advance under the artillery umbrella of these longer range systems.

Should more powerful artillery arrive, it could quickly tip the scales, said Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelenskyy’s chief of staff.

In the fighting on the west bank of the Dnieper River, Russia’s objective appears to be tying down Ukrainian forces that might otherwise shift to the battle for the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine’s goal, once it obtains artillery able to match the range of Russian guns, is to move over the fields to within striking range of two bridges and a dam crossing the Dnieper River in an operation that could cut supply lines of the Russian forces, Arestovich, the presidential adviser, said.

“We would do it with pleasure,” said Col. Taras Styk, a commander in the 17th Tank Brigade. “But now we have nothing that can hit them.”