Russia pummels exhausted Ukrainian forces with smaller attacks ahead of a springtime advance

Russian troops are ramping up pressure on exhausted Ukrainian forces to prepare to seize more land this spring and summer as muddy fields dry out and allow tanks, armored vehicles and other heavy equipment to roll to key positions across the countryside.

With the war in Ukraine now in its third year and a vital U.S. aid package for Kyiv slowed down in Congress, Russia has increasingly used satellite-guided gliding bombs — which allow planes to drop them from a safe distance — to pummel Ukrainian forces beset by a shortage of troops and ammunition.

Despite Moscow's advantage in firepower and personnel, a massive ground offensive would be risky and — Russian military bloggers other experts say — unnecessary if Russia can stick to smaller attacks across the front line to further drain the Ukraine military.

“It’s potentially a slippery slope where you get like a death by a thousand cuts or essentially death by a thousand localized offensives,” Michael Kofman, a military expert with the Carnegie Endowment, said in a recent podcast to describe the Russian tactic. If the Russians stick to their multiple pushes across the front, he said, “eventually they may find more and more open terrain.”

Last summer’s counteroffensive by Ukraine was doomed when advancing Ukrainian units got trapped on vast Russian minefields and massacred by artillery and drones. The Russians have no reason to make that same mistake.

Last November, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered his forces to build trenches, fortifications and bunkers behind the more than 1,000-kilometer front line, but analysts say construction work moved slowly, leaving areas unprotected.

“If the defensive lines had been built in advance, the Ukrainians wouldn’t have retreated in such a way,” Ukrainian military expert Oleh Zhdanov said. “We should have been digging trenches through the fall and it would have stemmed Russian advances. Now everything is exposed, making it very dangerous.”

In a recent podcast, Kofman also said that Kyiv is “quite behind on effectively entrenching across the front” and “Ukraine does not have good secondary lines.”

After capturing the Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka, Russian troops are zeroing in on the hill town of Chasiv Yar, which would allow them to move toward Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, key cities in the Kyiv-controlled part of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. Russia illegally annexed Donetsk and three other regions in 2022, and the Kremlin sees fully controlling that region as a priority.

Zhdanov said Ukraine doesn't have the firepower to repel Russian attacks.

“They promised to have a defensive line 10 kilometers (6 miles) behind Avdiivka where our troops could get and dig in, but there is none,” he said.

Gen. Christopher Cavoli, head of U.S. European Command, sounded the alarm before Congress last week, warning that Ukraine will be outgunned 10 to one by Russia in a matter of weeks if Congress does not approve more military aid.

After securing another term in a preordained election in March, President Vladimir Putin vowed to carve out a “sanitary zone” to protect Russia's border regions from Ukrainian shelling and incursions.

Putin didn't give any specifics, but Russian military bloggers and security analysts said that along with a slow push across the Donetsk region, Moscow could also try to capture Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv, which Russia tried and failed to take in the opening days of the war.

In a possible sign of a looming attack on Kharkiv, a city of 1.1 million about 30 kilometers (some 20 miles) south of the border, Russia has ramped up strikes on power plants in the area, inflicting significant damage and causing blackouts.

Ukraine doesn't have enough air defense to protect Kharkiv and other cities, and the constant Russian strikes are part of Moscow's strategy to “suffocate” it by destroying its infrastructure and forcing its residents to leave, Zhdanov said.

Retired Lt. Gen. Andrei Gurulev, now on the defense committee of Russia’s lower chamber of parliament, acknowledged that capturing Kharkiv is a major challenge, and he predicted the military would try to surround it.

“It can be enveloped and blockaded,” he said, adding that taking Kharkiv would open the way for a push deep into Ukraine and require more Russian troops.

After Putin’s order for “partial mobilization” of 300,000 reservists last fall proved so unpopular that hundreds of thousands fled abroad to avoid being drafted, the Kremlin tried a different approach: It promised relatively high wages and other benefits to beef up its forces with volunteer soldiers. The move appears to have paid off as Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the military recruited 540,000 volunteers in 2023.

“There are no plans for a new wave of mobilization,” Viktor Bondarev, deputy head of defense affairs committee in the upper house of parliament, said in remarks carried by state RIA Novosti news agency. “We are doing well with the combat capability that we have.”

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FILE - In this photo taken from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry on April 9, 2024, Russian soldiers carrying flamethrowers ride an armored vehicle in an undisclosed location in Ukraine. Russian troops have been ramping up pressure on exhausted Ukrainian forces across the front line to prepare to take more land this spring and summer. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

FILE - Ukrainian soldiers with the 22nd Mechanized Brigade prepare to launch the Poseidon H10 Middle-range drone near the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on March 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)

FILE - In this image released by the Russian Defense Ministry on April 9, 2024, Russian soldiers fire flamethrowers at Ukrainian positions in an undisclosed location in Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

FILE - Ukrainian soldiers with the 71st Jaeger Brigade fire a M101 howitzer at Russian positions on the front line, near the city of Avdiivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, on March 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)

FILE - In this video frame grab released by the Russian Defense Ministry on March 26, 2024, a Russian soldier in an undisclosed location fires an anti-tank missile at Ukrainian forces. Russian troops have been ramping up pressure on exhausted Ukrainian forces across the front line to prepare to take more land this spring and summer. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service photo via AP, File)

FILE - Ukrainian soldiers carry shells to fire at Russian positions on the front line, near the city of Bakhmut, in Ukraine's Donetsk region, on March 25, 2024. The outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian troops are struggling to halt Russian advances as a new U.S. aid package is stuck in Congress. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)

FILE - Ukrainian National Guard soldiers simulate an assault during tactical training at a shooting range in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region on Feb. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko, File)

FILE - Ukrainian servicemen with the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade fire a mortar at Russian forces on the front line near the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, on March 3, 2024. The outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian troops are struggling to halt Russian advances as a new U.S. aid package is stuck in Congress. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)

FILE – This frame grab from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Feb. 20, 2024, shows one of its Su-25 ground attack jets firing rockets during a mission over Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

FILE - In this image released by the Russian Defense Ministry on March 19, 2024, Russian soldiers participate in a military exercise somewhere in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

FILE - A Ukrainian officer with the 56th Separate Motorized Infantry Mariupol Brigade fires rockets from a pickup truck at Russian positions on the front line near Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on March 5, 2024. The outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian troops are struggling to halt Russian advances as a new U.S. aid package is stuck in Congress. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)

FILE - In this image taken from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry on March 21, 2024, a Russian rocket launcher fires at an undisclosed location in Ukraine. Russian troops have been ramping up pressure on exhausted Ukrainian forces across the front line to prepare to take more land this spring and summer. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at the annual meeting of Russian Interior Ministry Board in Moscow on April 2, 2024. After securing another term in a preordained election in March, Putin vowed to extend Moscow's gains in Ukraine to carve out a "sanitary zone" protecting Russian border regions from Ukrainian shelling and incursions. (Sergei Savostyanov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE – A Su-25 plane is seen firing rockets over Ukraine in a video frame grab. The video was taken from inside another Su-25 plane and released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Jan. 22, 2024. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

PHOENIX (AP) — A judge on Friday rejected an effort by GOP lawmakers to use the term “unborn human being” to refer to a fetus in the pamphlet that Arizona voters will use to weigh a ballot measure that would expand abortion access in the state.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Whitten said the wording the legislative council suggested is “packed with emotion and partisan meaning” and asked for what he called more “neutral” language. The measure aims to expand abortion access from 15 weeks to 24 weeks – the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb.

It would allow exemptions to save the woman’s life or to protect her physical or mental health. It would also prevent the state from adopting or enforcing laws that would forbid access to the procedure.

Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma, who is a co-chair of the legislative council, said the group will appeal the court’s decision to the state Supreme Court.

“The ruling is just plain wrong and clearly partisan,” said Toma, a Republican.

The State Supreme Court has until Aug. 27 to rule on the appeal for the language to be changed.

Aaron Thacker, communications director for Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, noted that the final decision on the ballot itself remains in the air.

“There’s still a lot of scenarios at play," he said. "Even after the secretary certifies the signatures, the courts have to decide if counties can put it on the ballot or not."

Arizona for Abortion Access, the organization leading the ballot measure campaign, sued the council earlier this month over the suggested language and advocated for the term “fetus,” which the council rejected.

Attorney General Kris Mayes wrote in a motion to submit an amicus brief that “fetus" and “pregnancy” are both neutral terms that the council could adopt.

“It’s incredibly important to us that Arizona voters get to learn more about and weigh our measure in objective and accurate terminology,” said Dawn Penich, communications director for the abortion access group.

Democrats have centered abortion rights in their campaigns in this year’s elections. Organizers in five other states have also proposed similar measures that would codify abortion access in their state constitutions: Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada and South Dakota.

Arizona organizers submitted more than double the amount of signatures needed for the measure to appear on the ballot.

FILE - Arizona abortion-rights supporters deliver over 800,000 petition signatures to the capitol to get abortion rights on the November general election ballot July 3, 2024, in Phoenix. A judge on Friday, July 26, rejected an effort by GOP lawmakers to use the term “unborn human being” to refer to a fetus in the pamphlet that Arizona voters will use to decide on a ballot measure that would expand abortion access in the state. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)