WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian forces reach another key frontline city, Ukraine's military says

Russian forces have entered the outskirts of the eastern Ukraine frontline city of Toretsk, Ukraine's military said late on Monday, less than a week after the fall of the nearby bastion town of Vuhledar.

"The situation is unstable, fighting is taking place literally at every entrance (to the city)," Anastasiia Bobovnikova, spokesperson of the Operational Tactical Group "Luhansk" told Ukraine's national broadcaster.

"The Russians have entered the eastern outskirts of the city."

Russia, which controls now just under a fifth of Ukrainian territory, has been advancing towards Toretsk since August, taking village by village with infantry aided by the increased use of the highly destructive guided bombs.

With Ukraine now losing more and more territory, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has ordered his top brass do "everything that can be done" to minimise Moscow's advance along the frontline.

For Ukraine, Toretsk has been a frontline city for 10 years now, as it is close to Ukraine's territories seized by Russian-backed separatists in 2014. It has since become an anchor of Kyiv's fortifications.

For Moscow, seizing the town, known until 2016 under the Soviet name of Dzerzhinsk, after Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet secret police, would bring closer President Vladimir Putin's goal of taking the Donbas region.

The fall of the hilltop Toretsk, Ukrainian military analysts say, would let Moscow obstruct key logistical routes connecting the operational rear of Kyiv forces in the area with the combat zone, including the major Pokrovsk-Kostyantynivka road.

After failing to capture the capital of Kyiv when launching Moscow's full-scale invasion in February 2022, Putin focused on taking the old industrial heartland in Ukraine's east known as Donbas, which covers the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

Donbas has since become the war's main theatre where some of biggest battles in Europe for generations have taken place.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Iskander strikes Ukrainian brigade base – Russian MOD

The Russian military has targeted a field camp of the Ukrainian 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade in the city of Pavlograd with an Iskander ballistic missile, the Defense Ministry in Moscow announced on Monday.

The 72nd was decimated in the battle for Ugledar, giving up the fortified Donbass town last week in a retreat the media in Kiev have described as chaotic, costly, and long-overdue. There was speculation that the brigade had orders to hold until Vladimir Zelensky finished his visit to the US, so as to avoid disrupting his “victory plan” narrative.

The mauled brigade was apparently withdrawn to an industrial area in Pavlograd, about 100km west of Pokrovsk, another frontline flashpoint. The 20-second video released by the Russian Defense Ministry appears to have been taken by a reconnaissance drone using night vision, and shows a large factory building going up in smoke.

The Iskander-M is a tactical ballistic missile with a confirmed range of 400km. It was unclear when exactly the video was taken.

Ukrainian media announced on Monday that the 72nd, also known as the ‘Black Zaporozhians,’ had received a new commanding officer, Colonel Alexander Okhrimenko. The new leader previously commanded the 14th Mechanized Brigade, but was reassigned to head the Odessa regional recruitment office in July 2023, after revelations of widespread corruption in the Black Sea port.

Reuters/RT