This morning, from the summary of the Ukrainian General Staff, which the military publishes every morning, no fighting was reported in the Marinka area. Up to this point the General Staff had invariably reported repulsed attacks there. Instead, for the fighting in the Donetsk region, the front line where the Ukrainians are holding back the Russian army is being drawn for the Novomykhaylovka area. Six attacks were repulsed there.
Novomihailovka is located six kilometers south of Marinka.
Yesterday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the “liberation” of Marinka, which was already under the control of Russian troops.
To the Russian announcement yesterday, the military spokesman of the Ukrainian group “South” Oleksandr Stupun reacted with a negative and said that the Ukrainian forces are still in the administrative borders of Marinka, although the city has been completely destroyed.
However, according to some Ukrainian military bloggers, the Russians entered from the western parts of Marinka and reached the borders of the neighboring village of Georgievka.
In military conditions, it is impossible to operationally verify the statements of officials from the warring parties.
Kyiv denies that Marinka has been taken
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, in a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, announced the complete “liberation” of the city
It may be noted, however, that the Russian military reported for at least the 20th time that the town had been captured. At the beginning of Russia’s war against Ukraine, almost every week Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov included Marinka in his report on the settlements “liberated” by the Russian army. As of June 2022, a Ukrainian monitoring group had counted that Marinka was released as many as 17 times since the beginning of the offensive in February.
On the one hand, the capture of Marinka now by Russian troops is a small victory. The city, which is located west of Donetsk, until 2014 had about 10 thousand inhabitants, it is now destroyed almost to the ground. Back in the summer, Ukrainian soldiers said the settlement was difficult to defend because no normal fortifications or shelters remained.
On the other hand, Shoigu’s army gets not only ruins, but also a field of maneuver. First of all, he gets an opportunity to attack from Marinka another stronghold of the Ukrainian armed forces – Novomykhaylovka, located in the south, and if successful, to launch a flank offensive to the Ukrainian bridgehead in the Ugledar region. Since the battles for Novomihailovka have already begun, we can assume that the Russian command has begun to implement this plan.
For the Ukrainian armed forces, the Ugledar bridgehead is of great operational importance, and it is obvious that they have no intention of handing over even the approaches to it.
Another likely direction for Russian troops to advance could be the H15 highwayleading west to the city of Kurahovo.
2023-12-26 10:11:05
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