The month of October ended with the biggest advance of Russian troops on Ukrainian soil since the beginning of summer 2022, that is to say when the local army managed to stop the inertia of the invasion. According to the Finnish organization Black Bird Group, the army of Valery Gerasimov this would have taken a total of 414 square kilometers over the past 31 days. Since August 1, Russia has managed to achieve the same progress as in the previous seven months, reflecting a worrying change in the dynamics on the front.
To the fall of Vuhledar on October 2, we must add that of Selidove in recent days. Both places have a high symbolic and strategic value. The first had become the example par excellence of Ukrainian resistance during these two and a half years of war, where the suicidal offensives of the Russians constantly failed, losing thousands of men trying to cross the plains without any protection. The second is essential to the protection of Pokrovsk and barely manages to defend itself. Ukrainian troops preferred to leave the city to avoid being surrounded.
Pushed towards the north and west, Ukrainian troops currently have only four major settlements in Donetsk: aforementioned Pokrovsk, communications hub for the entire region, Velyka Novosilka, almost on the border with Zaporizhia, and the important cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, where Ukraine has its command center and where railways still arrive from west with supplies and replacement troops. . Losing Pokrovsk, threatened since last summer, but still far from the front, would be a very hard blow that Ukraine must avoid at all costs.
600,000 Russian victims in two and a half years
That said, Russian advances are not in vain. Aware of the importance of these months – winter is approaching, the international community is increasingly tired and the elections in the United States could definitively mark the conflict in the event of victory. Donald Trump-, the Kremlin gave the order to give everything, even to incorporate ten thousand North Korean soldiers to help liberate the Kursk region.
This had consequences: October was also the month with the highest number of daily casualties and tank losses. In all, Around 1,000 armored vehicles will be eliminated in a single month, an unsustainable pace. Concerning human losses, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense estimates them at 1,680 per day. Of course, we’re not talking about the most reliable source in the world, but that same source gave half as much just a year ago. In other words, Russia is moving forward on all fronts, certainly, but by launching a meat-chopping machine that cannot last over time if Putin does not want to have serious internal problems with more mass mobilizations.
The newspaper The economistciting U.S. military intelligence sources, estimates that 600,000 Russian troops have been killed and wounded in Ukraine since the invasion began, with a total of 57,000 deaths so far in 2024 alone. These are the numbers quite close to those put forward by American military intelligence. Ukrainian government, despite persistent disagreements between the two administrations over everything else: how to fight the war, where to use weapons or what tactical decisions are correct. Recently, the White House disclosed New York Times classified information – in particular, the order of Tomahawk missiles by Volodymyr Zelensky-, which caused deep indignation in Kyiv.
This number of victims will continue over the coming months. Although it is already obvious that Russia has made progress in almost all directions, there are places like Chasiv Yar or Toretsk, near Bakhmut, which resist it and in whose onslaught many lives will have to be lost . Despite the setbacks, the setbacks, the fatigue and the obvious inferiority in number of soldiers and ammunition, the Ukrainian defensive line is not broken. It should be remembered that the conflict has already lasted about as long as the Spanish Civil War and that Russia has not yet finished conquering even the two neighboring regions that it already had under partial control since 2014.
The Spanish
Galloping inflation
Putin’s problems are not limited to the military. According to The Economist itself, Russia will spend a third of its budget on defense next year, which could lead to GDP growth in total terms, but would further stifle an increasingly impoverished civil society. Every month, Moscow recruits 30,000 new young people – and the older ones follow special offers for prisoners and other similar groups – which serves to compensate for losses on the front, but at the same time reduces the available manpower at the within the country. country and. This represents a huge moral blow for many families, especially in the easternmost provinces..
Inflation continues to soar, reaching 10% on a monthly average, leading the Russian Central Bank to increase interest rates to 21%, making it virtually impossible to access financing for new projects that do not have nothing to do with the military industry, which is reminiscent of the worst mistakes of the Soviet era. The currency, for its part, continues to depreciate: to obtain a dollar, you have to pay 97 rubles. A month ago, 92.59 was enough and before the war the exchange rate was 77. This allows exports to increase, but with an economy focused on domestic use and after the loss of so many partners, this doesn’t seem like much consolation.
The current question, beyond the pressure that can be exerted by the United States, is who will break first. The needs and anxieties are similar on both sides, only those on one side are much more publicized.. This is what the free press offers. US media have recently speculated that Zelensky was preparing his people for a deal with Moscow, ceding territory in exchange for peace and blaming the West for its lack of commitment. That would make sense, but the truth is that the American media has been downplaying Ukraine’s capacity for resistance for years.
The important thing for Zelensky right now is to abandon this middle path: either his country is sufficiently armed to be able to stand up to Russia and even win the war – North Vietnam defeated the American army, the Taliban did the same with the Soviet army. – or sufficient security guarantees are given so that any agreement is respected in the future. Forcing Ukraine to cede its territory in exchange for a vague promise from Moscow and without the commitment of its Western partners is nonsense. In five years, Russia will return to the fray and claim Kharkiv and Odessa. At least.
