Ukrainian soldiers talk during heavy fighting at the front line in Severodonetsk, Ukraine. Photo / AP
Ukrainian soldiers talk during heavy fighting at the front line in Severodonetsk, Ukraine. Photo / AP
Judging by what is left of the children's playground at the cultural centre in Druzhkivka, the Russian army still has plenty of artillery left for its campaign to seize Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.
The town was rudely awoken by four thunderous explosions on Saturday morning, as four rockets landed just two kilometres from The Telegraph's hotel.
One rocket demolished the local supermarket, while another tore a 3 metre-deep crater in the cultural centre's playground, decapitating a statue of a Soviet worker.
"This cultural centre is being used for humanitarian deliveries," fumed one local aid worker, as he salvaged crates of shrapnel-punctured food aid. "Thank God this didn't happen yesterday, when there were children in the playground and families queuing for food parcels."
A Ukrainian resident sits outside her home, damaged by a Russian missile strike, in Druzhkivka, Ukraine. Photo / AP
Quite why Russian commanders deemed the two buildings worthy of expensive precision missiles was unclear. Druzhkivka, a town of 60,000 in normal times, is not even on the frontline yet. That dubious privilege belongs to Slovyansk, 20 minutes drive further north, where the Russian army is now just 16 kilometres away.
Yet the bombardment was a preview of what every Donbas town taken by the Kremlin so far has faced – relentless shelling from afar, designed to bludgeon both Ukraine's civilians and military into submission. It has already won the Kremlin the city of Severodonetsk, its biggest prize in the Donbas so far. And according to Vladimir Putin, it will win them the rest of eastern Ukraine and perhaps even Kyiv too.
"Everyone should know that we haven't started anything yet in earnest," he boasted last week. Meanwhile, his close ally Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, said Russia was still planning the "De-Nazification" of Ukraine, suggesting regime change was still on the cards.
So can Russia succeed in taking the rest of the Donbas? And at what price to both itself and Ukraine?
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned this month 'we haven't started anything yet in earnest'. Photo / AP
Certainly, if Putin's generals are telling him what they think he wants to hear – which seems likely – it would not be hard to paint a picture of recent success. For in terms of crude military might, Russia is slowly prevailing, by the simple act of hurling far more artillery at the Ukrainians than they can throw back.
"They are focusing on the Donbas with a big artillery sledgehammer, then mounting short attacks with their surviving ground forces," said Ben Barry, senior fellow for land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "That creates a dilemma for Ukraine, because to repel the Russian ground force attacks, they have to concentrate their own troops rather than disperse them, which again makes them more vulnerable to artillery."
However, like the Soviet system that produced it, the current Russian war machine is a triumph of quantity over quality. The battle to take Severodonetsk alone has required an estimated 30,000 troops, using 20,000 artillery shells per day and costing an estimated 7,000 Russian lives.
Far from being routed, Ukraine has staged a steady tactical withdrawal, forcing the Russians into gruelling urban combat where their own forces – a third of the size – held the advantages.
Among those who fought in Severodonetsk was Issac Olvera, a former US Marine now serving as a volunteer with Ukraine's International Brigade.
"It was incredibly intensive fighting – the Ukrainians paid a heavy price there, but so too did the Russians," he told The Telegraph. "It is completely acceptable to withdraw tactically, while tying the enemy up to erode morale. Meanwhile, Ukraine is buying critical time to allow some of the bigger Western artillery pieces to reach the battlefield."
The gutted remains of cars sit along a road in Severodonetsk, Ukraine. Photo / AP
The Kremlin's territorial gains are also limited. Phillip O'Brien, professor of Strategic Studies at the University of St Andrews, points out that even if the Russians now also take Slovyansk, the total area captured will only be the size of Greater London.
And far from gaining momentum, the Kremlin is having to fight for every inch. If Putin wants to reach Kyiv, it may be not so much a sprint to the finish, as a marathon where each step is agony.
Already, for example, there are questions over how long the Russians can continue throwing 20,000 shells a day at their problems.
"That's a huge amount – about half the British army's entire current holdings of heavy artillery," said Barry. "It remains to be seen how much more the Russian defence industry can manufacture."
Russia's rear-echelon artillery dumps are also being targeted by Ukraine's new US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (Himars), which arrived on the battlefield in late June. More Western artillery kit is on the way, meaning Ukraine may get stronger as Russia gets weaker.
And as the Kremlin learned the hard way during its botched siege of Kyiv, the more ground is occupied, the more there is to defend from Ukrainian infantry attacks. To that end, Ukraine's defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov said in May that the country was now training a standing army of one million people.
Meanwhile, Russia has much to still accomplish just in the Donbas. Illia Ponomarenko, respected defence correspondent at the Kyiv Independent Newspaper, points out that so far, none of Ukraine's "large military groups" in the region have been destroyed or even surrounded.
Other targets necessary for control of the Donbas – including Slovyansk, nearby Bakhmut, and a line of towns stretching 100 miles south to Mariinka, near the separatist-held city of Donetsk – are now "fortresses" that will not fall easily.
Finally, there is the cost in human lives. Ukraine's casualties are estimated at around 20,000, with Russia's up to twice that. More important than the numbers, though, is each nation's ability to absorb the pain politically.
Much as Ukraine's deaths have caused anguish, its population still seems behind the war. There have been no protests, and few influential voices calling for concessions to end the bloodshed.
Nor, admittedly, has there been in Russia. But in a country that no longer tolerates dissent, it is hard to be certain just how much discontent is welling up. For every Russian soldier that has not come home, others return home injured or disillusioned. Combined with sanctions hitting living standards, there is no telling when a smoulder of discontent might become a blaze.
"The next few months will be a turning point," said Olvera, currently back in the US. "I expect Ukraine will become stronger, while Russia will become weaker, with the economy in shambles, sanctions undermining their military capabilities, and morale and discipline issues becoming even more severe."
How much more of the Donbas will be in Russian hands by then remains to be seen. But in one vote of confidence in Ukraine's capabilities, Olvera plans to return to help defend it. "The Ukrainians have done far better than I expected," he said. "Tough as it's been so far, it's encouraged me to go back."
