Russia creeps forward as Ukraine strikes its air force and navy

Russian forces advance as they try to break Ukraine’s defences while Moscow scolds Paris and NATO.

Russian forces continued to make minor gains on Ukraine’s eastern front in the past week, as they have done since the fall of Avdiivka on February 17.

Ukraine largely held its defensive line while continuing to pound military bases inside Russia.

These two actions were related.

Much of the pressure on Ukrainian defenders comes from Russian glide bombs – enormous munitions capable of creating a crater 6 metres (20 feet) deep and 20 metres (66 feet) wide, with a destructive radius hundreds of yards across. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba recently said Russia dropped 700 of these in just one week, and that the only way to counter them was to shoot down the aircraft that carry them.

“Russia is using glide bombs, along with direct-attack munitions, in volume to overwhelm Ukrainian air defence,” said the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).