Russian troops in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region have shifted from a steamroller strategy to one of relentlessly chipping away at their opponents in the hope of grinding them down.

Ukraine's army has little option but to try to stall their larger and better-equipped enemy in the sprawling plains of Donbas, where artillery is king.

"It's not like 2014, there's no defined front along a river or a road or a motorway," says Iryna Rybakova, spokeswoman for the Ukrainian army's 93rd brigade, which is at the centre of the fighting.

"It's one of their villages or one of ours: it's more like a chessboard."

"At the moment, we aren't able to make the enemy retreat from our front line," she admits.

In March, the Russian army said it would focus its efforts on the Donbas regions of Donetsk and Lugansk where pro-Russia separatists have been active since 2014.

But on day 66 of the war, Moscow is still far from obtaining the victory that many believe President Vladimir Putin wants to declare by May 9, a date that marks Russia's victory over the Nazis in 1945.

In southern Ukraine, Russian forces have taken over a strip of territory stretching from the besieged port city of Mariupol to Kherson, the region just north of Crimea.

But the Donbas is still far from being taken.

"Even if there has been some advance by Russian troops on the ground, it is not very fast," Russian military expert Alexander Khramchikhin told AFP.

- Creeping pessimism -

Apart from the hard-fought takeover of most of the southern port city of Mariupol on the shores of the Sea of Azov, the frontline that emerged from the 2014 war has not moved in the southern Donbas.

"In the Lugansk region, the objectives announced by Moscow are close to being achieved but in Donetsk, the advance is proving more difficult," said Khramchikhin.

For now, Russian forces are gradually moving down towards Kramatorsk, capital of Ukrainian-controlled Donbas and a key target for Moscow, while also moving up towards Pokrovsk, on the region's western flank.

In the past two weeks, they have gained a foothold in several small towns where urban combat is raging, such as Rubizhne, which had 57,000 residents before the war.

But no place of importance has been taken since the capture of Kreminna on April 18, a town of 18,000 people before the war, 50 kilometres (30 miles) northeast of Kramatorsk.

Pessimism about the chances of pushing back the Russians appears to be spreading.

Abandoned trains left on level crossings, bulldozed streets and barricaded roads suggest the focus has shifted to spoiling tactics to slow the advance.

- 'Hugely disproportionate' -

With the battle now shifted to the rolling plains and industrial cities of the Donbas, the confrontation is largely down to artillery -- what Soviet leader Stalin called "the god of war"

But the balance of power remains hugely disproportionate, with Russia up to "five times stronger in terms of equipment", says Iryna Terehovych, a 40-year-old sergeant in the 123rd Ukrainian brigade.

"We need tanks, artillery, anti-tank missiles," she told AFP.

"In Kreminna, we only had a few NLAW anti-tank missile systems and some didn't even work."

Russian forces also have Soviet-designed Grad, Uragan and Smerch rocket launchers which can fire multiple projectiles at a time, often used to deadly effect against residential areas.

Faced with the longer-range Tochka-U missiles, the Ukrainian defences have only been able to intercept some of them.

Kyiv has long been hoping that NATO would close the air space over Ukraine but it never materialised. And Ukraine has only a few SU-24 and SU-25 fighter planes to keep watch on Russian positions.

On the ground, there are roughly 40,000 to 50,000 Ukrainian soldiers in the Donbas, analysts say. Moscow has not said anything about its forces in the area.

"It's too late for us," said one Ukrainian soldier, who was struggling to repair a broken-down tank he said was used in the Soviet-Afghan war (1979-1989).

- Saving ammunition -

Although they are holding their ground on the battlefield, many of Ukraine's infantry soldiers admit to feeling overwhelmed.

"Viking", a 27-year-old staff sergeant who fought in Kreminna said his comrades are exhausted and waiting for the order to pull back.

"If it was a war between infantry forces, we would have a chance. But in this area, it's first and foremost an artillery war and we don't have enough artillery," he says.

"For every 300 shells they fire, we fire three."

Rybakova of the 93rd brigade said Ukrainian forces were working "in a more targeted way".

"We've learnt to save our ammunition during eight years of war," she said.

"For example, we fire when their troops try to break through."

The question remains whether the Ukrainian army will be forced to abandon the region, where it has been fighting since 2014.

"Either we go overboard on the heroics and we all die, or we pull back, stay alive and regroup our forces," said Sergeant Iryna Terehovych.

War in Ukraine: Latest developments
Kyiv, Ukraine (AFP) April 29, 2022 - Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine:

- Moscow admits Kyiv strike -

Russia confirms it carried out an air strike on Kyiv as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited.

The Russian defence ministry says "high-precision, long-range air-based weapons... destroyed the production buildings of the Artyom missile and space enterprise in Kyiv."

US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty says its journalist and producer Vera Gyrych died when a Russian missile hit the building where she lived.

- Putin's G20 invite -

The United States is unimpressed that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been invited to November's G20 summit in Indonesia.

"The United States continues to believe that it can't be business as usual with regards to Russia's participation with the international community or international institutions," State Department deputy spokeswoman Jalina Porter says.

- American killed -

The US Defense Department warns Americans against going to fight in Ukraine after a former marine was killed on Monday.

Willy Joseph Cancel's mother, Rebecca Cabrera, told CNN her 22-year-old son died while working with a private military contractor, having travelled to Ukraine in mid-March.

- Russians 'behind schedule' -

The Russian campaign to seize control of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine is moving slowly and behind schedule, a Pentagon official says.

Stiff resistance from Ukrainian troops and caution after Russia's failure to capture Kyiv has led to "slow and uneven progress" in Donbas, the official tells reporters.

- African consequences -

UN chief Guterres will visit several West African countries starting this weekend to highlight the consequences of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on the African continent, the United Nations says.

- Romania hit by cyberattacks -

A pro-Russia criminal group launches cyberattacks on Romanian government websites over the country's support for Ukraine, Romania's cybersecurity agency says.

A series of so-called Ddos attacks, where multiple requests are sent to a website to overload it, hit "public institutions and private entities", Romania's National Cybersecurity Agency says.

- UK show of strength -

The UK government says it is deploying about 8,000 troops for exercises across eastern Europe in a show of strength after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Britain is deploying 72 Challenger 2 tanks and 120 armoured fighting vehicles along with artillery guns, helicopters and drones for the exercises, some of which are already underway.

- Russia pays debt in dollars -

Russia's finance ministry says it has completed payments on two dollar-denominated bonds amid mounting fears that the sanctions-hit country may be forced to default on its foreign debt.

In early April, Moscow had attempted to make payments on these bonds in rubles after the United States barred Russia from making debt payments using dollars held by American banks in the wake of the Ukraine conflict

- Ukrainian grain exports resume -

A ship loaded with 70,000 tonnes of Ukrainian corn leaves a Romanian Black Sea port, allowing Kyiv to dodge a Russian blockade of its key grain exports.

Romania made the port of Constanta available to Ukraine after the country's ports were cut off in the wake of Russia's invasion. The ship's destination was not immediately revealed.

- 13 million uprooted -

More than 5.4 million Ukrainians have fled their country since Russia invaded two months ago, with tens of thousands joining their ranks every day, the United Nations says.

Beyond the refugees, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates more than 7.7 million people have been displaced within Ukraine, meaning that more than 13 million people overall have been uprooted by the conflict.

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Ukraine faces 'extremely difficult weeks' ahead: defence minister
Kyiv, Ukraine (AFP) April 27, 2022
Ukraine's Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov on Wednesday said Kyiv faced "extremely difficult weeks" ahead, warning of major "destruction" in a developing Russian offensive in the east of the country. "Some extremely difficult weeks lie ahead," Reznikov said in a statement on Facebook. "Russia has already gathered forces for a large-scale offensive in eastern Ukraine," he added, saying Moscow "will try to inflict as much pain as possible" and warned of "destruction and painful casualties". ... read more