Relentless Russian Assaults Bite Deeper Into Ukraine’s Battered Donbas Defenses

Relentless, high-cost Kremlin assaults in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region are not letting up despite a Kyiv counteroffensive launched two weeks ago into Russia and Western promises of more arms and ammunition, according to official statements and information platforms in both Russia and Ukraine.

“Our operations in the Donetsk direction have… accelerated. This concerns [the Donbas towns and villages] Niu-York, Dzerzhinsk [Soviet name for Toretsk], Pokrovsk and Selydove. We also see active assaults in the Vuhledar region: there is significant progress there as well,” said Boris Rozhin, a Kremlin-sponsored “war correspondent,” in a Tuesday statement.

Ukraine’s Army General Staff (AGS) in a Monday evening situation update said close to three-quarters of all the combat engagements taking place along the 1,500-plus km (932 miles) front of the war were exchanges of fire in the Pokrovsk or Toretsk sectors, at the center of a Russian offensive launched with the objective of taking over the entire Donetsk region.

Moscow has used staggered attack tactics in repeated assaults across a more than 50-km-wide (31-mile-wide) front, making slow but relentless progress against outnumbered Ukrainian forces usually in fortifications.

Aside from units deployed to Kyiv’s two-week-old offensive attacking Russia’s Kursk region, Ukrainian formations are outgunned by Russian forces usually able to fire three to five times more artillery shells and rockets than their opponents.

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More than two years ago Ukraine’s American and European allies promised to help Kyiv with artillery ammunition but have only been able to deliver Ukraine less than half the quantity received by the Russian army.

A second goal named by Russian President Vladimir Putin for the offensive is to wear down Ukrainian resistance and force Kyiv to sue for peace in order to stop losing men and equipment, even if Russian troops advance only a few hundred meters a day, taking heavy casualties in the process.

On Monday, both sides confirmed the flashpoint town Niu-York, a suburb of the Russia-held city Horlivka, had been the scene of bitter, seesaw fighting over the past 72 hours. On Monday evening, both Ukrainian and Russian milbloggers reported Russian forces had encircled the village, and some pro-Kremlin sources claimed Kyiv forces were wiped out.

Tuesday morning saw conflicting battlefield reports, with some Russian information platforms saying fighting had effectively ended following an organized Ukrainian retreat, and some pro-Kyiv unit news feeds claiming Ukrainian troops were under heavy pressure but still holding in the west edge of Niu-York, and in positions around the town of Toretsk to the north, on the T0516 hard road.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense (RMoD) on Tuesday claimed that its Center Group of combat forces “liberated one of the largest settlements of the Toretsk agglomeration and the strategically important logistics hub of Novgorodske [Niu-York’s Soviet name].” The official Kremlin statement named the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s 25th Airborne Brigade, 100th Mechanized Brigade and 120th Territorial Defense Brigade as units defeated and, allegedly, put to flight in the attacks around Toretsk and Niu-York.

The Russian milblogger Dva Mayora claimed Russian troops backed with air strikes had advanced 1.5 km (.9 mile) along a front of up to 3.5 km (2.2 miles) in the area.

Images published by the RMOC showed a TOS-1A Solntsepyok system, a short-ranged artillery piece firing heavy incendiary “flame thrower” rockets, pounding Ukrainian positions reportedly in the Donetsk region. Russian forces have fire superiority and “enemy positions are being burned,” a second RMoD statement said.

The Ukraine army AGS Tuesday report on combat around Toretsk said Russian forces launched 24 artillery or heavy mortar attacks against Ukrainian positions in the area, along with five air strikes dropping nine guided bombs. Russian forces “have pushed ahead” around the Toretsk-area villages of Pivnichne, Niu-York, Nelipivka and Zalizne, that AFU statement said. The official Kyiv report did not make clear which side controlled Toretsk proper.

A Tuesday morning statement from Ukraine’s 25th Airborne Brigade, a veteran unit fighting in that area since the early days of the war, said that Russian forces were attacking in small groups and taking heavy casualties and that Ukrainian lines were under pressure but intact. Unit feeds from the 120th monitored by Kyiv Post reported the situation on the fighting line was difficult but claimed defenses were holding.

Some past assaults during Russia’s Donbas offensive have gained ground only at a high cost. Near the city Kostyantynivka, some 15 km (9 miles) to the northwest of Toretsk, Russian infantry riding armored personnel carriers and backed by tanks, and attacking over the weekend, were badly cut up in assaults against strong Ukrainian defenses.

Ukrainian FPV drones, mortars and artillery destroyed at least 11 Russian armored vehicles on Aug. 14, but follow-up attacks over the next three days had pushed Kremlin forces into the eastern edge of Kostyantynivka, Monday reports from Ukraine’s defending 79th Air Assault Brigade said.

At least four Russian “turtle tanks” – combat vehicles rigged with add-on armor as additional protection against explosive-toting robot aircraft – were hit by FPVs and burnt in the Aug. 14 battle. In subsequent drone strikes individual Russian soldiers were hunted down and killed or injured, sometimes at night, images published by the 79th on Monday evening showed.

Fighting was still in progress in the area as Kremlin forces were reinforcing their hard-won ground gains around Kostyantynivka preparatory to more attacks, Ukrainian and Russian army statements said on Tuesday.