The city of Kramatorsk, a linchpin of Ukraine’s defensive line in the Donbas, is now within range of Russian artillery. Troops are consolidating around the eastern approaches, and the analytical consensus is that the next 72 hours will determine whether the frontline holds or fractures. This is not hyperbole; it is the physical reality of momentum in a war defined by ammunition expenditure and tactical positioning.
What makes this moment distinct from previous Russian offensives is the extent to which Ukraine’s ability to respond depends on a single variable: British-supplied weaponry. Specifically, the Challenger 2 tanks and the precision-guided munitions delivered in the most recent defence package have become the lynchpin of the 72nd Mechanised Brigade’s counter-battery fire. Without them, the ratio of artillery duels would shift from roughly 1:3 to something closer to 1:8 in favour of Russian systems. That is not a sustainable arithmetic.
Let’s ground this in physics. A Challenger 2’s depleted uranium armour package can withstand direct hits from most Russian anti-tank munitions, but the tank is not invulnerable. It requires logistical support: fuel, spare parts, and a steady supply of its 120mm shells. The British supply chain, stretched across 2,000 kilometres from the English Channel to the Donbas, is now being stress-tested by the very real constraints of warfare that planners in Whitehall had perhaps underestimated. The tanks are arriving, but not at the rate required to offset attrition. Two have been lost in the past week to drone-guided artillery, a weapon system that the Russian military has learned to deploy with increasing efficiency.
Meanwhile, the human cost is measurable. Casualty figures from the Ukrainian General Staff indicate that the 25th Airborne Brigade, holding the line south of Kramatorsk, is sustaining approximately 50 wounded per day. Field hospitals are reporting that the majority of wounds are from fragmentation ordnance, shrapnel from shells that are landing because counter-battery systems are being rationed. The British-supplied M777 howitzers, with their GPS-guided Excalibur rounds, can suppress these positions, but only if the ammunition is available. At current usage rates, the stockpile will last another two weeks. After that, the calculus changes.
The political dimension is this: Boris Johnson’s government has staked a significant portion of its foreign policy credibility on the success of this armament pipeline. Should Kramatorsk fall, the Conservative Party’s internal rhetoric about “standing firm against authoritarianism” will collide with the uncomfortable reality that material support, however generous, cannot substitute for the hard, grinding work of attrition that wars ultimately become. The value of British weaponry is not ideological; it is kinetic. If it cannot stop Russian shells from landing on Ukrainian positions, then it has failed in its primary purpose.
What happens next? The most honest assessment, based on satellite imagery of Russian logistics hubs in Rostov and the rate of barrel wear on Ukrainian artillery, is that the Donbas front will hold for another 10 to 14 days if resupply rates increase by 20 per cent. If they do not, the line will thin, and commanders will face the grim choice of withdrawing to a secondary defensive belt near Sloviansk, or committing reserves that are currently being held for a potential counteroffensive in the south. Both options carry catastrophic risk.
The biosphere of war is its own ecosystem, and in the Donbas, the energy transfers are simple: shells exchanged for territory, lives exchanged for time. The British-supplied weaponry has bought Ukraine time. The question now is whether it has bought enough.
