Russian military bloggers, among them a team of military analysts who oversaw the well-known Rybar Telegram channel, reported that Russian forces were still moving toward the town’s center.
Less than a week after the surrender of the bastion town of Vuhledar, the Ukrainian military announced late on Monday that Russian forces had reached the outskirts of the frontline city of Toretsk in eastern Ukraine.
Speaking to Ukraine’s national radio, Anastasiia Bobovnikova, the spokesperson for the Operational Tactical Group “Luhansk,” stated that “the situation is unstable, fighting is taking place literally at every entrance (to the city)”.
“The Russians have entered the eastern outskirts of the city.”
The Russian Ministry of Defense, which had earlier on Monday claimed that its forces had damaged personnel and equipment close to multiple communities in the region, including Toretsk, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Russian military bloggers, among them a team of military analysts who oversaw the well-known Rybar Telegram channel, reported that Russian forces were still moving toward the town’s center.
Similar to the taking of Vuhledar last week, Moscow’s forces’ advance has highlighted Russia’s overwhelming advantage in terms of both personnel and material, even as Ukraine begs for additional arms from the Western partners that have been assisting it.
With the expanded use of highly destructive guided bombs, Russia, which currently holds just under five percent of Ukrainian territory, has been moving toward Toretsk since August, capturing villages one by one with infantry support.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has given the order to do “everything that can be done” to limit Moscow’s progress along the frontline as Ukraine continues to lose land.
For the past ten years, Toretsk has been a frontline city for Ukraine due to its proximity to the lands that were taken over by separatists backed by Russia in 2014. Since then, it has developed into one of Kiev’s defenses’ anchors.
President Vladimir Putin’s ambition to conquer the Donbas region would be closer if Moscow were to take control of the town, which was formerly known as Dzerzhinsk after Felix Dzerzhinsky, the creator of the Soviet secret police. This was the case until 2016.
According to Ukrainian military strategists, Moscow would be able to block vital logistical lines that link the operational rear of Kyiv forces in the area with the battle zone, such as the main Pokrovsk-Kostyantynivka road, if the hilltop city of Toretsk fell.
Following the failure of Moscow’s full-scale military effort in February 2022 to seize the capital Kiev, Putin turned his attention to seizing the Donbass, or former industrial heartland in eastern Ukraine that includes the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
Since then, Donbass has developed into the primary theater of the conflict, hosting some of the largest engagements in European history.
