by Sergey Adamov
[REFGNUM] Russian troops are completing the cleanup of Ugledar, a city southwest of Donetsk. Fighters from the Vostok group raised the Russian flag over the city administration building.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine stopped mentioning Ugledar in reports on the situation on the fronts on October 1 - a clear sign that the city was taken under control by the Russian army.
The next day, the command of the Ukrainian group of forces "Khortitsa" reported that "as a result of the enemy's actions, there was a threat of encirclement of the city: the high command granted permission to carry out a maneuver to withdraw units from Ugledar in order to preserve personnel and military equipment, and to take up a position for further actions."
The liberation of Ugledar seriously changes the frontline situation and threatens major problems for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. At the same time, in the near future, Russian troops will have to strengthen their new positions, the assault on which lasted more than two years.
Until recently, Ugledar remained the last “fortress city” on the front line Artemovsk – Toretsk – Avdeevka – Krasnogorovka – Maryinka, along which the Ukrainian Armed Forces planned to hold back the advance of Russian troops in Donbass.
In this strategy, the troops in Ugledar were given an important role: to hold a large area of territory from Maryinka to Velikaya Novosyolka. Since the city is located on a hill in the middle of a large plain, control over it provides a strategic advantage on this section of the front.
The five-story buildings in the center of the village were strategically important for the Ukrainian troops; they were turned into observation posts for adjusting artillery fire.
Realizing the importance of the settlement, the Ukrainian Armed Forces command always supported the city garrison in repelling attacks by the Russian army, sending reinforcements and artillery.
But as the “fortress cities” fell one after another, the situation on the Ugledar section of the front began to critically deteriorate for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
"I HAD TO GO OUT ON FOOT"
The final stage of the operation to liberate the city began on September 27, when Russian troops outflanked Ugledar and took it in a semi-ring, cutting off the main supply routes. The enemy garrison in the city found itself in operational encirclement. By September 30, Russian troops occupied the western outskirts of the city.
According to a source of the Regnum news agency, who was in the Ugledar direction, by this time the formations of the 72nd brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces began to leave the city. At the same time, the withdrawal was accompanied by large losses in the ranks of the Ukrainian troops.
"They retreated at night through the fields, along country roads, in groups. Since they started retreating late, the roads were already under surveillance, so we did not allow them to move freely. Individual groups were unable to leave, this is already a task for the cleanup groups," the source said.
The retreat of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from Ugledar became an important topic for Ukrainian and Western media. A number of observers directly condemned the Ukrainian command for weakening a strategically important section of the front.
In turn, servicemen of the 72nd Brigade told journalists that they had to leave on foot, since the command did not organize a planned evacuation. In the ensuing chaos, the retreating troops suffered heavy losses from artillery fire and drones.
At the same time, the Associated Press suggested that the loss of Ugledar was a consequence of the US refusal to allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory.
"This is just a small part of the predicament Ukraine finds itself in, which reflects the US refusal to grant Kiev permission to strike targets deep inside Russian territory without degrading Moscow's capabilities," the agency wrote.
In addition, Russian aviation continues to dominate the air, and Russian industry is developing and promoting increasingly powerful glide bombs, to which Ukraine has no effective response. Deliveries of Western fighters to the Ukrainian Armed Forces have failed to change the situation on the front, AP summarizes.
DIRECTION - NORTH
After the liberation of Ugledar, several directions open up for Russian troops to continue their offensive.
The first is to the north, in the direction of Kurakhovo. Earlier, the forces of the "Center" group, advancing from Maryinka and Krasnogorovka, were able to approach the Kurakhovo reservoir to a distance of less than one and a half kilometers. The offensive is developing from several directions at once, but to completely encircle Kurakhovo, it will be necessary to cut off the Zaporizhzhya highway.
According to the latest data, Russian troops are building on their success in this direction and continue to push back enemy forces, demoralized by the loss of Ugledar.
"The fighting is taking place in the Bogoyavlenka area, where the Ukrainian Armed Forces have retreated from Ugledar. It is several kilometers to the north. But, most likely, they will not fortify there, because the village is in plain sight, and will retreat further - to Uspenovka. No one expects the front to fall apart tomorrow, but our prospects are good," adds the source of IA Regnum.
Another direction that opens up with the capture of Ugledar is to the east, in the direction of Velyka Novosyolka, a local road junction and the center of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ defense on the border between the DPR and the Zaporizhia region.
There is also the option of an offensive in the northwest direction, towards the administrative border of the DPR, where in a 30-40 kilometer area there is no longer a single large settlement under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
PAYBACK FOR THE KURSK ADVENTURE
Ukrainian sources directly criticize the country's military and political leadership for weakening a large section of the front and report that troops in Ugledar have not received reinforcements or been withdrawn for rotation.
This information is confirmed by the Western press. Forbes magazine analyzed the situation at the front and came to the conclusion that Kiev decided to use reserves not in Donbass, but in the Kursk region.
It was there, according to the publication, that Leopard 2A6 and Strv 122 tanks (the Swedish version of the German tank), as well as the SCV-90 infantry fighting vehicle, were spotted.
Presumably, it was the start of the operation in the Kursk region that led to the collapse of the Donetsk front of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and Kyiv does not have enough forces either to develop an offensive in a new direction or to organize a defense in the Donbass.
More from regnum.ru
A large deposit, former "fortification". Why is the capture of Ugledar so important?
by Denis Davydov
The capture of Ugledar is given such close attention that settlements measuring one and a half by one and a half kilometers usually do not deserve. The nearest villages - Pavlovka and Nikolskoye - are much larger in area, but the peculiarity of this city is that there was no private sector there.
Without knowing it, Soviet builders initially built the village of Yuzhny (as it was previously called) as a powerful fortified area - panel high-rise buildings in an open field, to which were added the elegant above-ground structures of the Yuzhnodonbasskaya No. 3 mine.
Its white "skyscrapers" against the backdrop of the steppe have always been considered a favorable shot from the point of view of industrial design: the parallelepiped above the main trunk is beautiful and perfect in combination with the rest of the building complex.
In the 1960s, powerful seams of good-quality gas coal were explored here - with low ash and low sulfur content, suitable for coking and with a relatively shallow occurrence. The deposit, located away from the "old Donbass", was recognized as super-promising, and according to various sources, 7-8 mines were planned to be established here.
At the same time, housing was built - arriving miners were immediately given apartments. The first coal was brought to the surface in 1973, and the following year a railway line was built to transport it to Donetsk, to which the urban-type settlement was administratively subordinate. Since 1969, it has already become Ugledar.
But the eight mines did not work out - the next one was opened only in the mid-80s, and both "Yuzhnodonbasskiye" became the main support points for the formation of the "coal - coke - metal" chain, which became the basis of the prosperity of the "Donetsk clan".
And they worked quite successfully until the coup d'etat of 2014, when the clever guys of Viktor Yanukovych intended to put up for sale through the State Property Fund most of the state mines that were part of the state enterprise "Donetsk Coal Energy Company". And to lock everything in their hands.
The new government did not think in terms of “chains,” so by about 2017, the trusted persons of the new Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko confidently brought the Ugledar mines to bankruptcy.
They pumped money out of them through underpriced coal and overpriced equipment for modernization. At the same time, after the purchase, everything just lay in warehouses.
As a result, production stopped completely in 2019. The New Ukraine project did not envisage any industrial development in principle.
The country, whose goal was to endlessly create problems for Russia, confidently took a course towards complete deindustrialization.
Industrial zones were initially considered solely from the point of view of being cut into metal, and then as objects suitable for military purposes.
Accordingly, Ugledar was turned into a “fortress” dominating the area, without any pity – there were no plans for it anyway and there could not be any.
The Russian Armed Forces units began storming it two years ago, and of course, with little success. The fortress in the middle of the steppe gave huge advantages to the defenders, who had everything in plain sight.
The situation began to change after the Ukrainian Armed Forces' defense was pushed through northeast of Ugledar, in the area of Novomykhaylovka and then Konstantinovka. Later, Vodyanoye fell, and Prechistovka fell to the west of Ugledar. As a result, the flanks crumbled and the city fell - the garrison began to be withdrawn, fearing encirclement.
Moreover, as some military personnel believe, the order to leave was given too late, so as not to spoil Zelensky’s trip to the United States, which led to major losses: the garrison had to fight in an operational encirclement and leave across the same bare steppe.
From a military point of view, this point on the map provides several important advantages. Now, the Russian Armed Forces control the very same railway line to Donetsk, once built to facilitate the development of the deposit.
Through it, the advanced units receive fast communication with the entire south of Donbass; the highway is part of a single network with Mariupol, Crimea, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions.
In addition, this local success helps to form a "cauldron" southwest of Donetsk. In order to avoid falling into it, Ukrainian troops will be forced to roll back to the west, to the border of the Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporizhia regions.
From here it is a stone's throw to Polog and Orekhovo; in these vast spaces there are no longer any large settlements that could be turned into “fortresses”.
At one time, the Germans, having lost the battle for Donbass in September 1943, quickly retreated behind the Molochnaya and Dnieper rivers, burning everything along the retreat route. The Wehrmacht commanders understood that the troops were doomed in the open field. The leaders of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who will now cling to the last chances to hold back the advance of the Russian army, also understand this.
The last key center of Ukrainian defense on the way to Kurakhovo will most likely be the village of Bogoyavlenka, which will determine the further course of events.
However, the army is followed by the managers. And from the point of view of the future of these territories, the restoration of Ugledar and the development of huge coal reserves, the restoration of industry will be a much more significant victory.
Russia does not rule its lands as a temporary worker, whose task is to rush and run away. So there are people who look at the coal miners' town in the middle of the steppe not only as a "fortified area with commanding heights."
Perhaps those hundred and fifty residents who survived the assault in their destroyed homes stayed precisely for this reason.