Russian Forces Press On With Attacks in Southern Ukraine

Russian forces in current days have launched a number of assaults across the southern Ukrainian village of Robotyne, navy officers and specialists stated, focusing on land hard-won by Ukraine in a uncommon success of its counteroffensive final summer time.

The Ukrainian Military stated it had repelled 4 consecutive days of assaults from Saturday to Tuesday involving armored autos and huge numbers of troops that had massed within the space.

Open-source maps of the battlefield compiled by impartial teams analyzing fight footage recommend that Russia has made marginal good points to the west and south of Robotyne. The Institute for the Research of Warfare, a Washington-based analysis group, said on Monday that Russian forces had superior to the western outskirts of the village.

“Take note of the village of Robotyne,” Dmytro Lykhovii, a spokesman for Ukrainian forces preventing within the space, stated on nationwide tv final week. “Plainly the Russians have set a aim of reaching some success there” and deliberate to attempt to seize the village, he stated.

The weekend assaults round Robotyne got here as Russian forces took the frontline city of Avdiivka, about 100 miles to the east, and attacked Ukrainian positions on the east financial institution of the Dnipro River, greater than 130 miles to the west. Navy analysts say these near-simultaneous assaults are designed to use stress throughout the entrance line in an effort to cut back Kyiv’s capability to withdraw and replenish exhausted troops and to power it to burn via its already scarce shares of ammunition.

“They’re making an attempt somewhere else, testing the Ukrainian defenses,” stated Pasi Paroinen, from the Black Bird Group, which analyzes satellite tv for pc imagery and social media content material from the battlefield. “They’re probing and in search of weaknesses.”

Serhii Kuzan, chairman of the Ukrainian Safety and Cooperation Heart, a nongovernmental analysis group, stated Moscow would attempt to construct on its success on the jap entrance within the coming weeks and “minimize off Robotyne at any prices.” He and different analysts stated that Moscow had tens of 1000’s of troops round Robotyne, and he predicted that assaults would intensify.

Russia’s good points round Robotyne, a village of just some hundred inhabitants earlier than the battle, have been restricted to date. The village fell beneath Russian occupation shortly after Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022. It was retaken by Ukrainian forces in August, after weeks of fight that underlined the immense challenges Kyiv faces in punching via dense Russian defenses erected within the space.

Right now, Robotyne sits in a bulge carved into Russian-held territory, surrounded to the west, south and east by Moscow’s troops. In current weeks, Russian forces have been attacking the flanks of this pocket and regularly recaptured small stretches of land, utilizing what the Ukrainian navy has described as small assault teams backed by armored autos.

“The state of affairs is dynamic there, the enemy is inflicting heavy hearth,” Mr. Lykhovii stated on Monday.

Geolocated footage of the battlefield confirmed Russian assault drones hitting Ukrainian-held trenches just some hundred yards south of Robotyne. Rybar, a outstanding Russian navy blogger, said that Russian troops had gained a foothold on the southern outskirts of Robotyne and that preventing was now going down within the village, which was largely diminished to rubble through the preventing final summer time. His declare couldn’t be independently confirmed.

Mr. Paroinen, from the Black Hen Group, stated Russia had retaken some fortifications misplaced in the summertime counteroffensive. He added that Robotyne shouldn’t be straightforward for Ukrainian troopers to defend as a result of Russian troops management the excessive floor across the space.

“Normally, that’s a giant downside for the Ukrainians there,” he stated, including that Russia had positioned three divisions round Robotyne, between 30,000 and 40,000 troopers, together with some elite paratrooper models.

Mr. Kuzan, from the Ukrainian Safety and Cooperation Heart, stated he anticipated that among the troops concerned within the seize of Avdiivka would now be “redeployed to different components of the entrance line within the coming days,” presumably round Robotyne to assist with the offensive push there.

Ukraine’s navy stated on Monday that its troops had taken up new defensive positions outdoors of Avdiivka, in an try and cease additional Russian advances.

Mr. Kuzan and different navy analysts stated that delayed Western navy help had weakened Ukraine’s capability to maintain Russia’s assaults all alongside the entrance line. “The Russians have realized that we’re actually ‘starved of shells,’ that means that we can’t reply to each considered one of their assaults,” Mr. Kuzan stated. “They may proceed to place stress on Robotyne.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine acknowledged in his nightly handle on Monday that “the state of affairs is extraordinarily tough in a number of components of the entrance line, the place Russian troops have amassed most reserves.”

Russia, he added, is “making the most of the delays in support to Ukraine.”