The Vuhledar fortress in Ukraine had been holding out for more than two and a half years. Massively shelled since the start of the war – and caught in a pincer movement by the enemy army – the fate of this mining town in the Donetsk region with a pre-war population of 15,000 was eventually decided in the last few days after a final assault by Moscow's forces.
While Russian authorities had yet to claim control of the town on Tuesday, October 1, regional governor Vadym Filashkin had described an "extremely difficult" situation on Ukrainian television in the morning, that it was impossible to deliver humanitarian aid to the last 107 or so civilians. On Tuesday evening, analysts from the Telegram channel Deep State, close to the Ukrainian army, confirmed the presence of Russian forces "in every corner of the city," describing the loss of this crucial logistical hub for Kyiv as being inevitable.
The fall of Vuhledar is the latest sign of Russia's unstoppable advance in eastern Ukraine. What has long been presented as a simple "whittling away" of territory by the Russians is now becoming significant, according to many military observers. "Over the last 200 days, the Russian army has advanced an average of 110 to 120 meters a day, but eventually that's a strip more than 20 kilometers wide. That's not insignificant," said a French military source. "This war is no longer really a high-intensity war as it was often described at the beginning. It is now a slow, long-intensity war," added the source.
Russian advances in Ukraine follow a common pattern, with a "pincer" progression of troops: Russian forces identify pockets of Ukrainian resistance, two separate units break through opposing lines in parallel – at the cost of many deaths in their ranks – then gradually encircle Kyiv's forces before neutralizing them. "The Russians' objective is not conquering territory, but destroying the enemy. It's annihilation by fragmentation," continued the French source. This pincer system was notably observed in Toretsk and Niou-Iork, two small Ukrainian towns of 5,000 and 9,000 inhabitants which fell to the Russians between August 23 and September 20.
Faced with the Russians, the Ukrainians have developed a whole host of defensive lines with field fortifications and very tight, sometimes zigzag-shaped trenches to complicate enemy calculations, but such layouts have not been possible everywhere. Ukrainian forces are often clinging to their positions at all costs, resorting to a variety of defensive methods, including the massive use of drones. But unlike Moscow, Kyiv has few reserve forces. The lowering of the legal age for military call-up in the spring from 27 to 25 is struggling to bear fruit. Despite the "plan for victory" presented by President Volodymyr Zelensky in the US on September 22, the absence of any real Plan B is increasingly undermining troop morale.
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