The end of the year will not mean the end of the Russia-Ukraine war

María Senovilla, journalist and contributor to the magazine Atalayar and other media, spoke on the programme "De cara al mundo" on Onda Madrid about the current situation of the war in Ukraine and analysed what the year 2023 has meant for the conflict and the expectations for 2024. 

Apart from the last hour, we would like to take stock of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. First months, Battle of Bakhmut: What is your assessment of the first months of the year? 

Paradoxically, 2022 ended in a similar way to how 2023 is going to end, with Ukraine immersed in a war of positions. As you recalled, the beginning of 2023, these first months of the year, were marked by the two bloodiest battles to date: the fight for the city of Solitude and the great final battle of Bakhmut, which concentrated the media spotlight until May when it could not hold out and fell into Russian hands. 

In previous interviews between January and April last year, Ukrainian forces and medical teams counted up to 400 casualties per day throughout the first months of 2023. The battle of Bakhmut will therefore be the darkest moment of the war, the most terrible battle.

On the positive side, it was thought that Russia's capture of Bakhmut would "open the door" for it to finish conquering what was left of the Donetsk region, the north that remained for it to complete its encirclement of the Donbas. Fortunately, during the months of battle in Bakhmut, the Ukrainian defence forces created a layered defence, digging dozens of kilometres of trenches, positioning new defence points and managing to contain the Russian army, thanks in part to international collaboration, which was awaiting the launch of this second counteroffensive, after the success of the Kharkov counteroffensive, which, let us remember, served to recover around 30% of the territory occupied by Russia. 

Meanwhile, we in the media were waiting for the long-awaited counter-offensive announced "with great fanfare", which was expected to arrive in the spring and finally arrived in the summer. 

What was this counter-offensive like? Because it was presented as the definitive counteroffensive, but it has not achieved the expected results at all. 

The counteroffensive, which began on 4 June, was a failure. It is not a half success. During those first weeks of summer, Ukraine suffered heavy casualties because it attacked with everything it had. It lost some of the very expensive weaponry that arrived from the West and, above all, it took a great human toll to advance only 17 kilometres, mainly on the front of Zaporiyia. Worst of all, everything it gained in the summer it had already lost in the autumn. The problems began as early as August when journalists began to restrict our access to many battlefronts. They began to classify as red zones, regions where we could move with a certain freedom. They started to stop granting interviews with senior officers. There was a lot of secrecy. It got to the point where the press was blamed for losing ground because of reports that pointed out the critical areas for the Ukrainian army. Proof that the big second counteroffensive was not on the right track. 

It is always necessary to look for someone to blame for what we in the press have long become accustomed to. The year ends with a Russian offensive in October that is, little by little, managing to wipe out a large part of the Ukrainian positions. 

In fact, it is the fiercest counteroffensive carried out by Russia in 2023, in this second year of the war. It began on 10 October when the media spotlight was on Gaza. The Kremlin took advantage of the situation to attack with everything on the front line in Donetsk, specifically, they started with the city of Avdivka. It is a town located only 10 kilometres from Donetsk. The proximity to the Russian-occupied regions was something that Putin resented. Avdivka is one of the richest cities in the country with one of Europe's largest coking plants and mineral resource infrastructure. 

Russia did not invade the Donbas because they spoke Russian or for ideological reasons. It invaded the Donbass because it was the richest region in Ukraine. And all these cities that it is gradually taking over, because they were cities where this mining was processed and generated a lot of money. Avdivka is probably the most besieged city in Ukraine. 

If we said that during the first months of the year Ukraine had lost up to 400 people, had registered casualties of 400 people per day, in October Russia lost up to 1,000 men per day in an attempt to conquer Avdivka. It's barbaric. The Kremlin doesn't care, but in the end they are people and many of them have been forcibly conscripted. They don't even want to be in this war that is going on in Ukraine. We are talking about the fact that during the months of October and November Russia lost more than 20,000 men and a large part of its heavy weapons in an attempt to conquer Avdivka. But, unfortunately, Russia has also managed to stabilise itself despite international sanctions, it has managed to stabilise economically, it has managed to receive from North Korea and other third countries more than a million rounds of shells, like the ones it used this morning to massively attack the cities, the civilians of Ukraine. 

Before Christmas, in the last days I spent on the Donetsk front, I was told in the positions I was visiting that the Russian activity, that I was told that they were in an uproar, that the Russian activity had increased a lot compared to the summer. There were days when on the fronts between Avdivka and Bakhmut there were up to 50 synchronised Russian attacks. In addition, I could testify that the artillery duel was much more intense. You saw explosions everywhere when you were there working with them day in and day out. And it seems that the year, in addition to ending, as we were saying, with us immersed in this war of positions, it is possible that in these early stages of the winter Ukraine will lose key cities. It has already lost Marinka, Avdivka is hanging by a thread and the cities of Andriivka and Klitschivka, which are just south of Bajmut, are also likely to fall into Russian hands in the coming weeks. 

Maria, finally, just briefly, what do you think 2024 might look like? 

Right now, the entire Zelensky government and all the citizens of the country are looking forward to the arrival of those aid packages that have been stalled. Both the arms aid that is due to arrive from the United States and the economic aid, the 50 billion euros that the European Union has proposed sending and that the far-right government in Hungary has stalled. It is also believed, or rather hoped, that this money and these arms packages will be accompanied by F-16s, which could mark a turning point.

Right now the war in Ukraine is a totally symmetrical war, a war of positions, a war of trenches. In which there is a very high level of wear and tear, both human and material, without any change being achieved. And what Ukraine is hoping for, what Ukraine is hoping for, is that by sending both the aviation of these F-16s and the long-range missiles, it will be able to turn this war into something asymmetrical. To manage to get past those defences, those iron minefields that Russia has laid and that prevent the infantry from advancing, to manage to save them from the air with those resources, those planes, those long-range missiles and in this way be able to break through the Russian ranks and be able to make the chessboard on the battlefield move. 

However, you spoke at the beginning about Zaludnit, about the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, about that press conference he gave, in which he showed a clear displeasure, about the way in which the recruitment of troops is being approached, about the way in which everything related to armaments, money, everything that moves this war is being managed. It's not clear that, with the simple arrival of F-16s, pilots will still be trained, which is another big stumbling block, because I don't think it's easy to fly an F-16, and training for the pilots who will have to maintain them is being done at breakneck speed. And then we have to see how that performs when they're in the air.