Vuhledar Ukraine in August of 2024. NBC News/Getty.
Russia has taken yet another town in Ukraine, this time the bastion of Vuhledar in Eastern Ukraine. NBC News. Vuhledar had held out since the beginning of the Russian phase of the war back in 2022. But Russia has been steadily advancing across the entire front with Ukraine as the war moves away from the grinding attritional warfare that had defined it. Ukraine ordered the last unit in the hilltop mining town, the 72 Mechanized Brigade, to retreat so they would not be encircled. Though Russia has not mentioned the victory in its dispatches, videos on Telegram show Russian soldiers raising the Russian flag in the city. Russia was planning on encircling the city, using the "cauldron" tactics they have used throughout the war. Russia's advances have captured 80% of Donbass, which is their war goal, with 98.5% of Luhansk and 60% of Donetsk.
My Comment:
The Russian advances in Ukraine have largely flown under the radar recently. This is forgivable given how so many huge stories have broken in the past few weeks. It's hard to compete with a devastating hurricane, a major war breaking out in the middle east, a huge strike in the United States and one of the more memorable debates we have seen in recent history.
But the story is pretty important. Russia is pushing back Ukraine all across the front, even in the Kursk incursion to Russia. Vuhledar is hardly the only city to fall to Russia recently, it's just the one the news is covering right now. It's just another example of the war shifting into Russia's favor.
Vuhledar is a strategically important town. Ukraine had held on to it since the war began and there had been heavy fighting there for the entire time. Losing it is an embarrassment for them and it shows how desperate the situation was there. Looking at the map of the area, it seems clear that Russia should be able to take quite a bit of territory. They should be able to easily move north to cut off the H-15 highway and start another cauldron in the area. They can also threaten the city of Velyka Novasilka to the west. There just doesn't look like there are any defenses in the region.
The problem for Ukraine is that they are seeing similar problems across the front. Russia has figured out how to fight them and the decisions Ukraine has made. It's clear that their attack into Russia was a huge mistake. They simply don't have the reserves to throw into these battles and can't properly defend the cities they still hold. If they had some of those reserve forces that they used in the Kharkov region they could have at least tried to end the encirclement of the city. But instead those troops and vehicles were wasted in an offensive that has accomplished almost nothing.
I wrote about Trump's meeting with Zelensky that it's very possible that by the time Trump takes office any negotiation about ending the war could be moot because of Russian victories on the battlefield. And I still think that is very possible. Russia has a massive advantage in manpower, weapons and morale while Ukraine barely has enough troops to man the front lines. And the troops they do have? They are low quality, poorly trained conscripts. And many of them are old men who can barely fight. Indeed, I do think that Ukraine is no longer capable of major offensive operations. I could be wrong about that but I do think that the Kharkov operation was the last hurrah.
Of course, Ukraine does still have major forces and I also don't think a general collapse is an immediate fear. Their army is in a steady decline but they are still well armed and have a lot of bodies. They can make the war drag out for a time. The question is how long? Will it be weeks? Months? Perhaps even years? With more and more cities falling to Russia I think the middle option is the most likely. They can hold out for awhile but I think the war will probably end one way or the other next year...
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