Kyiv, Ukraine – Armed with two sticks that serve as walking sticks, a 97-year-old Ukrainian woman fled her town in eastern Ukraine to escape advancing Russian troops.
“I survived this war and will survive this one too,” said Lidya Stepanovna, referring to World War II and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Wrapped in a woolen scarf and a warm gray coat, she said in a video released Monday by Ukraine’s Interior Ministry that after Russian shells burned down her house, she had to march for 10 hours as gunfire and explosions boomed behind her.
She fainted and fell twice, but kept getting up and walking until White Angels, a police unit that evacuates civilians from frontline areas, picked her up.
The woman was leaving Ocheretyne, a town in Donetsk with a prewar population of about 3,400 that lies in lush, flat steppe. The city was occupied by Nazi Germans between 1941 and 1943 – and fell to the Russians earlier this month.
“Everything is upside down. “Everything is scary,” she said.
In recent weeks, outgunned and poorly supplied Ukrainian forces have lost ground in the eastern Donetsk region, which has been contested between Kiev and Moscow-backed separatists since 2014 and has become the new flashpoint of the war.
The Russians stepped up their attacks ahead of the arrival of American military aid, including anti-tank missiles and 155 mm caliber grenades, which could end the desperate “grenade hunger” of the defeated Ukrainian troops
“We fire one grenade in response to 10 grenades from their side,” a soldier based in Donetsk told Al Jazeera.
The Russians bombard Ukrainian-held trenches, towns and villages with gigantic glide bombs and artillery fire, and tirelessly deploy troops, sometimes dozens of times a day, with little regard for casualties and armored vehicle casualties.
Ukrainian forces have withdrawn from Ocheretyne and several other towns and villages, creating a wedge for Russian forces and endangering major towns in the Kiev-controlled part of Donetsk.
“We stormed without support”
Some Ukrainian soldiers from Brigade 155, which took over the city’s defense, blame their commanders’ mistakes for the demise.
“My company was literally destroyed, we performed tasks in the worst conditions and no one cared, we stormed without support and with stupid command, we defended with almost no support and with the same stupid command,” wrote one of the soldiers on X, formerly known as Twitter.
A retired Ukrainian general said the dominance of Ocheretyne’s high-rise apartment buildings over the surrounding steppe could have served as an effective deterrent against Russian troops and prevented the city’s takeover.
“We have a serious system failure,” General Serhiy Krivonos said in a televised address.
As expected, the Russian side triumphs.
A pro-Kremlin military analyst blamed the fall on mistakes by Oleksandr Syrskii, the new commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, and on the general lack of weapons, ammunition and air defense.
“The downside is that the whole of Ukraine and all military personnel know that there is no money, no equipment and a terrible lack of air defense systems,” Vladimir Prokhvatilov of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences told Kremlin-funded Sputnik radio.
“And when Syrskii orders a retreat, people just run away, he provoked the panic himself,” he was quoted as saying.
Syrskii replaced Valerii Zaluzhnyi, a hugely popular top general who had reportedly clashed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky over counteroffensive strategies and the urgent need to mobilize hundreds of thousands of men.
Analysts predict a major Russian breakthrough.
“This is a breakthrough not at a tactical level, but at a strategic level. And therefore the Russians will only increase their pressure,” Kiev-based analyst Mikhail Shyrokhov told Radio NV.
“The situation around Ocheretyne is very difficult and only tends to get worse. Because such an advance gives the Russians enormous advantages on the flanks. Therefore, it will be very difficult to hold other cities and another line of defense,” he was quoted as saying.
“There is a big hole in the Donetsk front through which the Russians can advance in three or four directions,” Nikolay Mitrokhin of Germany’s University of Bremen told Al Jazeera.
By deploying more troops, the Russians could destroy Ukrainian positions along the Bakhmutka River and advance up to 15 kilometers (9 miles) to the southwest without much resistance, he said.
But the Ukrainian armed forces will not simply give in.
“The situation is quite dire, but it is not clear what reserves the Ukrainian armed forces will find and how Russian forces will be able to break through minefields under constant drone attacks,” Mitrokhin said.
However, he is pessimistic about Ukraine’s overall chances of turning the tide of the war given Kiev’s inability to produce more weapons domestically.
“Complete packages of [Western] Help can only slow progress. Nobody talks about “victory of Ukraine” or “liberation”. [occupied] “Ukraine has refused to mobilize its economy to restore its military-industrial complex,” he said.
The Russians want to advance toward the largest cities in the Kiev-controlled part of Donetsk – Kostiantynivka, Pokrovsk and Khariv Yar – which also serve as important logistical hubs.
Other analysts are not so pessimistic.
“Faced with a lack of ammunition and manpower, the Ukrainian army holds its best and then gradually retreats,” Kiev-based analyst Igar Tyshkevich told Al Jazeera.
“If a residential area is razed, you either retreat or your people will be slaughtered,” he said. “As soon as the [Western] Ammunition is there, there will be stabilization.”
Another Ukrainian soldier serving in Donetsk said that in recent weeks Kiev has stepped up efforts to build a heavily fortified defensive line.
“Fortunately, we started building fortifications similar to those of the Russians,” he told Al Jazeera.