Combat along the Russo-Ukraine War’s 1,000+ kilometer (621+ mile) contact line on Tuesday saw intense fighting in sectors recently captured by Ukrainian assault troops, with Kyiv’s forces mostly holding their positions and claiming big casualties among attacking Russian troops, but Kremlin forces scoring gains in some locations.
A multi-pronged Ukrainian counterattack launched last week inside the city of Toretsk, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, gained more ground over the weekend and pushed Russian troops out of eastern districts.
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Battle reports said house-to-house fighting was in progress as Ukrainian infantry cleared buildings. Drone video reviewed by Kyiv Post generally supported the Ukrainian claim of a solid foothold in the coal-mining town.
A statement from Ukraine’s Joint Forces Khortytsia command reads: “The enemy is suffering numerous losses but has not given up its intention to capture this city.” Ukrainian intelligence said Russia’s 4th Battalion, 101st Separate Guards Infantry Brigade, an elite unit, was still fighting hard to prevent further Ukrainian advance.
Russian military information platforms said that a Russian counter-counterattack into Toretsk had pushed Ukrainian troops away from tactically-important coal mine slag heaps and that Russian forces had recaptured lost ground. Battle video from Ukraine’s 33rd Mechanized Brigade, a formation reporting it is in combat in Toretsk, showed Russian infantry and vehicles coming under bomber drone and first-person view (FPV) drone strikes, and Russian troops retreating.
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A Ukrainian Army General Staff statement on Tuesday said: “The enemy continued to storm our positions in…Toretsk. Ukrainian units did not allow any deterioration of the tactical situation. Defense units are holding under the pressure and destroying enemy forces (attacking) in superior strength.“
The front line inside the city by daylight on Tuesday was quiet and stable following 13 attempted Russian assaults over the past 24 hours, the statement says.
The Ukrainian military blogger/army officer Kyrylo Sazanov on Tuesday said that Russian pressure against Toretsk was unlikely to abate, because Russian forces seemed to have abandoned a six-month-long attempt to break through to the major city Pokrovsk, and had selected the smaller town Toretsk as the new, less ambitious main objective for Russian offensive operations in east Ukraine.
A Ukrainian counterattack to the west of Pokrovsk into the village Udachne, captured by Russia in January in an attempt to cut supply to Pokrovsk, was continuing on Tuesday with assault infantry advancing against weakening Russian resistance, Ukrainian milbloggers reported. A Russian Defense Ministry statement seemed to tacitly acknowledge loss of control of the village, reporting Kremlin forces had bombarded the village causing “hundreds” of Ukrainian casualties.
A Russian Defense Ministry Tuesday daily situation report claimed operations in the Pokrovsk sector generally were proceeding well and Kremlin forces were still advancing on the city.
Ukrainian sources contradicted that, and claimed Kyiv lines in that sector were holding firm. The Ukrainian milblogger Govotyat’ Snaiper, one of the country’s most popular with close to 300,000 Telegram followers, said of the day’s battles in the city of Chasiv Yar, a fortress town blocking direct Russian movement towards Pokrovsk: “In Chasiv [Yar] the b*stards are getting castrated.”
In the Kupyansk sector, in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, a Ukrainian raid reportedly cleared fields and pushed Russian troops backwards into a village called Siniyavka in a combined arms drone/artillery/infantry attack.
Telegram data feeds from the 1st Presidential Brigade, a public duties formation fighting on the front line since the early days of the war, showed bomber and FPV drone strikes against Russian positions reportedly in and around the village. An Army General Staff daily situation update published on Monday said Russian forces were pushed back and the line in that sector was stable.
Video published by the strike drone unit Kondor from the sector showed Ukrainian kamikaze robot aircraft crashing into and knocking down four Russian observation drones in claimed kills.
Kyiv Post geo-located the images to the Kharkiv sector but could not confirm conclusively the video was recorded over the village. The US-based military analyst Donald Hill said “It was a crucial gain, though, because it - finally - forced the Russians out of an area where they could establish a major stronghold for their further advance on the town.”
Inside the Russian Federation, multiple sources said, Russian forces have scored successes to make short advances into a salient carved out by Ukrainian forces in August. Three villages in Russia’s western Kursk region returned to Kremlin control in fighting over the weekend and Monday, the Russian mil-blogger Dva Mayora reported.
Limited Russian advances likewise were confirmed by the Ukrainian civilian battle information platform DeepState to the south of Pokrovsk, where Ukrainian troops fell back 1-3 kilometers (.6 – 1.9 miles). Ukrainian forces inside Russia have slowly lost ground over the past month, controlling about 420 square kilometers (162 square miles) of Russian Federation territory in early February, and currently about 380 square kilometers (147 square miles), DeepState reported.
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