Russia seized Vuhledar, a key city, after almost 2 years of attempts

• Russia appears to have finally captured Vuhledar, a key front-line town in eastern Ukraine.
• The city has been under attack since the start of the war, with heavy fighting since January 2023.
• The city’s strategic location may provide a boost to Russia – after at least 18 months of fighting.

Russia appears to have gained control of a key Ukrainian frontline city, military experts said, as the city’s governor described a difficult situation for Ukraine there.

Citing open sources and pro-Russian military bloggers, the Institute for the Study of War said that as of Tuesday, “Russian forces likely captured Vuhledar.”

Russian forces were seen moving freely around the city and planting flags there, ISW reported.

Vuhledar’s governor, Vadym Filashkin, told Ukrainian television on Tuesday that the situation in the city was “extremely difficult” and that “the enemy has already reached almost the center of the city,” the Kyiv Post reported.

One hundred and seven of the city’s civilians — out of a prewar population of about 14,000 — remained, Filashkin said.

Russia has been fighting to seize Vuhledar – a small coal-mining town in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region – since at least January 2023.

On Wednesday, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not mention the city in its daily location update where fights took place.

The monitoring website DeepState showed that Vuhledar has been surrounded by Russian forces on three sides since Monday.

As of Tuesday, its map shows that the city is completely under Russian control.

Unable to easily resupply from any direction, the Ukrainian soldiers were likely trapped before being bombarded with glide bombs, Reuters reported.

Vuhledar has been targeted by aerial bombardment since the start of the war, having been hit by Russian cluster munitions on February 24, 2022, according to Human Rights Watch.

Since then, Russia has made several sustained attempts to take the city. A major assault began in January 2023 at a cost of thousands of troops, the Ukrainian military told Politico last year.

The fighting destroyed much of Russia’s elite 155th Naval Infantry Brigade, considered one of the best in the country.

Another attack took place in June, with Russia securing a series of advances in nearby towns last month.

How strategically important the capture of Vuhledar will prove remains to be seen.

As a hotly contested hotspot, Vuhledar has earned a reputation as a “fortress” in the Ukrainian military, and its loss is likely to be a morale blow, the Kyiv Independent reported.

Russia’s upcoming morale boost is likely to come at a welcome time in Moscow — a rare victory as President Vladimir Putin raises the country’s defense and security spending to 40 percent of the country’s total budget, the highest on record.

According to draft budget documents released earlier this week, Russia has earmarked the equivalent of $145 billion for defense spending next year, up from about $114 billion.

Some economists say the war is the only thing keeping Russia from an immediate recession.

Meanwhile, the Institute for the Study of War cited its own earlier assessment on Tuesday that the seizure of Vuhledar “is unlikely to fundamentally alter the course of offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast, largely because Vuhledar is not a particularly crucial logistical hub “.

“It is unclear whether Russian forces will make rapid gains beyond Vuhledar in the immediate future,” the think tank added.

However, the city’s high ground and its position at the intersection of the eastern and southern war fronts still make it a valuable target for Russia, according to Reuters.

And its loss has the potential to threaten the security of the entire unoccupied southwest of the Donetsk region, Federico Borsari, defense and security fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, told the Kyiv Independent.

The city is also about 35 miles south of Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian logistics hub that Russia has kept under intense pressure throughout the summer – and whose southern flank is now even more vulnerable.