The advance may be slow but it is steady. According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), an American think tank that monitors conflict developments on a daily basis, the Russians have gained 505 km2 of Ukrainian territory since October 2023 and the failure of Kyiv's counter-offensive, equivalent to five times the area of Paris. After recapturing Avdiivka, a Donbas city with a pre-war population of 35,000, which fell on February 17, Russian forces have been laying siege since late March to Chasiv Yar, a town that controls access to Kramatorsk, a mining town of 150,000 inhabitants.
For the time being, this "nibbling" remains far from the gains made by Kyiv in autumn 2022, when Ukrainian forces recaptured 12,000 km2 of their territory in the Kharkiv region, in the north-east of the country, and forced the Russians to evacuate the right bank of the Dnipro river. However, Western military experts are concerned that Russia's growing military potential could ultimately give Moscow the upper hand. "Russia maintains a significant quantitative advantage in the conflict, overmatching Ukraine in munitions and equipment numbers," said the UK Ministry of Defense in a note published on March 30. Kyiv is at a "critical juncture," acknowledged US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a visit to Paris on Tuesday, April 2.
Western concern is focused in particular on "glide bombs," smooth bombs dropped by aircraft to which a guidance system and deployable fins are added in flight, enabling them to be launched dozens of kilometers from their target. Moscow has adapted these kits to bombs ranging in weight from 250 kilos (FAB-250) to 1.5 tonnes (FAB-1500). During a visit to a factory near Nizhny Novgorod on March 21, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu unveiled a three-tonne version. By comparison, 152 mm shells fired by Russian guns weigh around 40 kilos.
Since the beginning of the year, Russian fighter-bombers have dropped more than 3,500 of these glide bombs on Ukrainian targets, according to Ivan Gavrylyuk, Ukraine's Deputy Defense Minister, in an article published on March 18 by the Ukrinform news agency. According to Michael Kofman, a researcher at the American think tank Carnegie, the Russians are now using them "averaging 30-40 per day on parts of the front and from increasingly longer ranges (from 40-55km to 60km+)." "Glide bombs are fairly inaccurate, but destructive (...). However, they suppress units, destroy buildings, and fortifications," explained Kofman in a message published on X on March 19.
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