And so it happened that a day after Russian Federation troops entered the encircled Key Donetsk city of Ugledar (Vuhledar in Ukrainian), the city has been completely conquered, according to Ukrainian, Russian and western sources in rare agreement.
Kiev’s forces withdrew from the strategic outpost on the frontline in the eastern Donbas region as Russian troops slowly continued their cleanup of the territory that Moscow had targeted since the beginning of the war.
Bloomberg reported:
“Russia took control of the strategically important coal-mining town, Ugledar, a day after entering and occupying about half of the settlement, according to DeepState on Wednesday. The map service is maintained in cooperation with the Ukraine’s Defense Ministry.
Ugledar offers an advantageous location on the battlefield ahead of winter, with high-rise apartment blocks on an elevated plain in the middle of flat fields.”
Ugledar stands a few miles from a Russian-controlled rail link between the city of Donetsk and the Crimean peninsula, a logistics link that serves as an alternative to the Kerch Bridge and the maritime passage.
The Kremlin declared Ukraine’s Donetsk region as part of Russia two years ago after holding a referendum, but so far it still controls only part of the territory.
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has made increasingly urgent pleas to Western allies for military hardware, air defense and long-range missiles as Russian forces gain ground.
After seizing the city of Avdiivka in Donetsk in February, Kremlin troops have gradually built on the advance, threatening strategic towns such as Pokrovsk, more than 600 kilometers (380 miles) southeast of Kyiv.”
During the retreat from Ugledar, the Ukrainian Armed Forces suffered significant losses in personnel and were forced to abandon some of the wounded.
Russia’s control of Ugledar comes after it had resisted Russian assaults for more than two years.
Reuters reported:
“Ugledar – which means “gift of coal” – is a coal mining town in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region with a pre-war population of around 14,000 people, nearly all of whom have fled. It was built by the Soviet Union in the mid 1960s around a mine. There are two mines there now with significant coal reserves.”
Control of Ugledar is an important stepping stone to incorporating the entire region into Russia.
“Control of the town – which Russians long regarded as one of Ukraine’s toughest fortified positions to crack – is considered important by both sides because of its position on elevated ground and because it sits at the intersection of the eastern and southern battlefield fronts giving it added significance when it comes to supplying both sides’ forces.
While Ukrainian forces were in full control of Ugledar, they were able to use the town as a platform to shell Russian military supply lines in the area.”
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