While Moscow and Kiev trade long-distance blows with missile and drone attacks, the Russian summer offensive continues unabated, gaining terrain at the fastest pace after the first push at the beginning of the war.
In 2024 the Russian troops liberated around 200 settlements in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhie, Kherson, as well as north in the Kharkov region.
The most advances were achieved in Donetsk Oblast, where since early November, Russian Federation forces have been besieging and storming the Key city of Kurakhovo.
Now, Russians have conquered virtually all of the residential parts of Kurakhovo, with only the industrial western area with the thermal power plant and the adjacent industrial zone remaining.
The advance in pincers is closing in from both the north and the south, and the city is being surrounded.
As Moscow forces approach the thermal power plant, some groups of the Ukrainian Armed Forces still remain in the residential sector, but the Russians are bypassing them, gradually advancing the flanks to reach the station.
Watch: ‘Donetsk rugby’ – under the cover of friendly fire, two Russian assault troopers throw anti-tank mines into each of the entrances, and in a few seconds the 5-story building collapses with the Ukrainian forces still inside it.
Two Russian Stormtroopers from the Borz battalion of the 110th brigade assault a building in which numerous Ukrainian troops are holed up.
They destroy the entire 5 story building, and its occupants by throwing mines in and running away
With literally seconds to spare pic.twitter.com/8Euc7ao4iz
— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) December 20, 2024
The pro-Ukraine German analyst from BILD, Julian Röpcke, laments that the Russian Army occupies town of Kurakhovo ‘which is mostly intact’.
For all practical effects, both sides agree, Kurakhovo has fallen.
#NewsMap
Once again, the Ukrainian army had to leave a town due to the lack of manpower. Now Russians occupy #Kurakhove, which’s infrastructure is mostly intact, and Ukraine has to bomb thousands of potential hideouts from the distance … pic.twitter.com/8kZlXmFuQV— Julian Röpcke (@JulianRoepcke) December 19, 2024
Russians are storming Dachnoye from the north, trying to cut the escape routes of the retreating Ukrainian troops from Kurakhovo.
Watch: An attack on an electrical substation in the west of Kurakhovo, Dachnoye settlement.
An attack on an electrical substation in the west of Kurakhovo, Dachnoye settlement. pic.twitter.com/255lXIdw0V
— Intel Slava (@Intel_Slava) December 21, 2024
By retreating to the Power Plant and making a stand there, Ukrainian defenders are recreating a miniature Azovstal (in Mariupol) by fortifying itself in the site.
Sputnik reported:
“Kurakhovo is as the lynchpin of Ukrainian defenses in the region, with its fall opening the way for the Russian troops to Pokrovsk, a key logistical hub for Kiev.
[…] Kurakhovo is important for Kiev from the economic standpoint as well, since the local coal mining area is currently the only place under Ukrainian control where coking coal is produced.”
Losing the coal plant may kneecap Ukraine’s steel production, and therefore its military industries.
Watch: 5 Russian soldiers capture the most important Ukrainian defensive position in the city center, with anti-tank systems, sniper positions and machine guns.
Russian assault on #Kurakhovo
5 #Russian soldiers captured the most important Ukrainian defensive position in the city center.
The elevator is the tallest building in the city, which had anti-tank complexes, sniper positions and machine guns
The total collapse of Nazi #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/H2gemr1Kl0— Alexander Ivanov (@innova_center) December 11, 2024
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