Russian forces in latest days have launched a number of assaults across the southern Ukrainian village of Robotyne, navy officers and specialists mentioned, focusing on land hard-won by Ukraine in a uncommon success of its counteroffensive final summer time.
The Ukrainian Military mentioned it had repelled 4 consecutive days of assaults from Saturday to Tuesday involving armored automobiles and enormous numbers of troops that had massed within the space.
Open-source maps of the battlefield compiled by unbiased teams analyzing fight footage counsel that Russia has made marginal beneficial properties to the west and south of Robotyne. The Institute for the Examine of Battle, a Washington-based analysis group, said on Monday that Russian forces had superior to the western outskirts of the village.
“Take note of the village of Robotyne,” Dmytro Lykhovii, a spokesman for Ukrainian forces combating within the space, mentioned on nationwide tv final week. “Plainly the Russians have set a purpose of reaching some success there” and deliberate to attempt to seize the village, he mentioned.
The weekend assaults round Robotyne got here as Russian forces took the frontline city of Avdiivka, about 100 miles to the east, and attacked Ukrainian positions on the east financial institution of the Dnipro River, greater than 130 miles to the west. Navy analysts say these near-simultaneous assaults are designed to use strain throughout the entrance line so as to scale back Kyiv’s capacity to withdraw and replenish exhausted troops and to power it to burn via its already scarce shares of ammunition.
“They’re making an attempt elsewhere, testing the Ukrainian defenses,” mentioned Pasi Paroinen, from the Black Bird Group, which analyzes satellite tv for pc imagery and social media content material from the battlefield. “They’re probing and looking for weaknesses.”
Serhii Kuzan, chairman of the Ukrainian Safety and Cooperation Middle, a nongovernmental analysis group, mentioned Moscow would attempt to construct on its success on the japanese entrance within the coming weeks and “lower off Robotyne at any prices.” He and different analysts mentioned that Moscow had tens of hundreds of troops round Robotyne, and he predicted that assaults would intensify.
Russia’s beneficial properties round Robotyne, a village of just some a whole lot inhabitants earlier than the warfare, have been restricted thus far. The village fell beneath Russian occupation shortly after Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022. It was retaken by Ukrainian forces in August, after weeks of fight that underlined the immense challenges Kyiv faces in punching via dense Russian defenses erected within the space.
At this time, Robotyne sits in a bulge carved into Russian-held territory, surrounded to the west, south and east by Moscow’s troops. In latest weeks, Russian forces have been attacking the flanks of this pocket and steadily recaptured small stretches of land, utilizing what the Ukrainian navy has described as small assault teams backed by armored automobiles.
“The state of affairs is dynamic there, the enemy is inflicting heavy hearth,” Mr. Lykhovii mentioned on Monday.
Geolocated footage of the battlefield confirmed Russian assault drones hitting Ukrainian-held trenches just some hundred yards south of Robotyne. Rybar, a distinguished Russian navy blogger, said that Russian troops had gained a foothold on the southern outskirts of Robotyne and that combating was now happening within the village, which was largely diminished to rubble in the course of the combating final summer time. His declare couldn’t be independently confirmed.
Mr. Paroinen, from the Black Hen Group, mentioned Russia had retaken some fortifications misplaced in the summertime counteroffensive. He added that Robotyne just isn’t simple for Ukrainian troopers to defend as a result of Russian troops management the excessive floor across the space.
“Typically, that’s an enormous drawback for the Ukrainians there,” he mentioned, including that Russia had positioned three divisions round Robotyne, between 30,000 and 40,000 troopers, together with some elite paratrooper models.
Mr. Kuzan, from the Ukrainian Safety and Cooperation Middle, mentioned he anticipated that a number of the troops concerned within the seize of Avdiivka would now be “redeployed to different components of the entrance line within the coming days,” presumably round Robotyne to assist with the offensive push there.
Ukraine’s navy mentioned on Monday that its troops had taken up new defensive positions exterior of Avdiivka, in an try and cease additional Russian advances.
Mr. Kuzan and different navy analysts mentioned that delayed Western navy help had weakened Ukraine’s capacity to maintain Russia’s assaults all alongside the entrance line. “The Russians have realized that we’re actually ‘starved of shells,’ which means that we can not reply to each one in all their assaults,” Mr. Kuzan mentioned. “They’ll proceed to place strain on Robotyne.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine acknowledged in his nightly deal with on Monday that “the state of affairs is extraordinarily tough in a number of components of the entrance line, the place Russian troops have amassed most reserves.”
Russia, he added, is “making the most of the delays in support to Ukraine.”
