The long slog to the Black Sea

There are no gentle ways to die on the battlefront, but the fate of two Russian soldiers was particularly grim.

Captured in their trench as half their colleagues ran away, they were tied up and led towards a Ukrainian command post. But their guards, who were also carrying their own side’s wounded, abandoned them after Russian artillery zeroed in on them.

Left in open fields as the shells came in, and unable to run, the two men had little chance. ‘‘They were cut to shreds by the time our men got back to them,’’ said the major commanding the Ukrainian attack, who asked to be identified by his call sign Sakram. There was little sign of sympathy.

As Russia’s initial advances into Ukraine peter out, the conflict’s outcome now depends on whether small battles like this can turn into big offensives, either a limited renewed assault by Moscow, or a Ukrainian counter-offensive.

The evidence provided by the last few minutes of these two men’s lives, near the small settlement of Novopetrykivka between the city of Zaporizhzhya and the pro-Russian ‘‘breakaway’’ capital Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, is that it will be slow, bloody and nasty.

Under-trained Ukrainian soldiers armed with Western weapons will take on disillusioned Russians. But the Russians are still backed up by fearsome artillery capabilities, inflicting regular losses – on their own men as well as

Ukrainians. Both sides are taking heavy casualties.

All along this front facing the Black Sea coast 80km away, a series of well-dug trenches indicates that the fighting is more or less static.

The Black Sea is vital, the most under-rated facet of this war. The Russians have seized the entire coastline from the border to Crimea, and while Ukrainians express the vague hope that one day they will storm back down to the beaches, that does not look imminent.

The main Russian offensive is now focused on the far east of Ukraine, in an attempt to trap the Ukrainian army between the towns of Sieveridonetsk and Kramatorsk and capture the whole of the Donbas region. But more important is the broad corridor across southern Ukraine over which the

Russians have secured their rule.

This land bridge could be the starting point for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s apparent longer-term ambition

to recreate a ‘‘Novorossiya’’, uniting Russian-speaking areas along the whole coast to Transniestria in Moldova, and cutting Ukraine off from the sea.

The zone already seized by the Russians contains far bigger and more important cities than any being fought over further east – Mariupol, whose surrender is being negotiated; Berdyansk; Melitopol; and the biggest, Kherson, a port and shipbuilding hub.

Ukraine faces a choice – try to take back these cities by force, or try to cut them off and then, presumably, negotiate a Russian withdrawal.

From the front lines, where exhausted and, in some cases, clearly terrified young Ukrainian men were swapping battle tales as they were relieved by fresh troops, this looks very far off.

At Novopetrykivka, the Russian artillery is not only preventing Ukrainian advances but demoralising soldiers in their fixed positions.

Hennady Niemitz, 51, claimed to be enthused by the prospect of fighting for Ukraine, but his comrades admitted they would be doing better with more, and more sophisticated, weapons, and well-trained troops.

The regulars, like Sakram, are better equipped, with American Javelins, Britishsupplied Nlaws and German Panzerfaust anti-tank missiles. Sakram is upbeat about the prospects for the coming month, saying that the objective of reaching the Black Sea could be attained by the northern autumn.

But the task is formidable. At the start of the war, the Ukrainians lost this whole territory, at least 13,000km2, in a couple of days.

Much has been written about the poor morale of Russian troops. They have certainly surrendered in large numbers, 3000 on this front alone.

But they have a way of using sheer numbers to achieve their objectives, and they will be defending cities the Ukrainians may have more qualms about levelling than the Russians displayed in Mariupol. The path to the sea will be long and winding.