The Shot Telegram channel and pro-Russian war bloggers said on Wednesday that Russian troops have taken full control of the town of Vuhledar in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which has resisted Russian attacks for more than two years.
Here are some key points about the city and the battle.
What is Vuhledar?
Vuhledar – meaning “gift of coal” – is a coal mining town in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, which had a pre-war population of about 14,000 people, almost all of whom have fled. It was built by the Soviet Union in the mid-1960s around a mine. There are now two mines which contain significant coal reserves. Russians call the city Ugledar, which is located on a flat plain and is dotted with high-rise apartment buildings and other structures.
Why did Russia want to take it?
Moscow says the Donetsk region is one of four Ukrainian regions it has annexed from 2022, a claim Kiev rejects as illegal. Moscow saw control of Vuhladhar as an important step towards incorporating the entire region into Russia.
Control of the city – which the Russians have long considered one of the most difficult-to-fortify positions in Ukraine – is considered vital by both sides because of its high altitude and because it is at the intersection of the eastern and southern battlefields. It is situated here, which gives it additional importance. When it comes to supplying the armies of both sides.
While Ukrainian forces were in full control of Vuhladar, they were able to use the town as a staging post to shell Russian military supply lines in the area.
The city is located close to the railway line running from Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, to Ukraine’s industrialized Donbass region, which includes the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, of which Most are controlled by Moscow.
The capture of Vuhledar, which Russia characterizes as one of Ukraine’s last strongholds in southern Donetsk, opens the way for Russian forces to advance elsewhere.
How did Russia capture Vuhledar?
The Russian army trapped the Ukrainian troops in the city in what they called a mini-carriage, gradually surrounding it on all sides and thus making it harder for the Ukrainian army to resupply and move in and out of the city. .
When such a cauldron goes off, as Russian military bloggers say has already happened, there is no way in or out for the defenders, who in this case were attacked with devastating air glide bombs .
Russian forces had previously made at least four major attempts to capture Vuhledar, but they were foiled by fierce resistance from Ukraine’s 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade.
Neither side disclosed losses, but Ukrainian officials said Russian losses were significant during previous unsuccessful attempts to capture the city. Moscow says Ukraine has also paid a high human cost in trying to retain Vuhledar.
What does Vuhledar look like now?
Fierce fighting since 2022 has destroyed much of the city. Images of Russian forces raising their flag on the roof of an administrative building in the center on Tuesday showed a structure that was reduced to rubble in parts and with all its blackened windows blown out.
The city’s deputy mayor, Maxim Verbovsky, told Ukrainian state media last year that every single building was damaged, along with the entire infrastructure. He then said that less than 500 civilians remained, including three children and several pensioners. All children and most adults have since been evacuated.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
