A major Ukrainian town falls to Russian forces after two years of resistance

Russian forces have seized a major Ukrainian coal mining town in the war-torn Donbass region, which Vladimir Putin’s forces could use as an outpost to launch attacks deep into Ukraine.

Russian forces on Wednesday pushed into the devastated town of Voledar in the southeastern part of the country — once home to about 14,000 people. According to CBS News.

Over the past two years, the stronghold in the Donetsk region has withstood repeated Russian attacks.

But intensified attacks threatened to isolate the defenders from the rest of the country, leading to the decision to withdraw and “preserve personnel and military equipment,” the newspaper reported.

“These are very difficult days. Very difficult!” 72nd Mechanized Brigade, which was the last Ukrainian unit to defend the city, he wrote in an Instagram post Which also contained pictures of wounded soldiers.

Moscow has seized about a fifth of Ukraine after more than two years of fierce fighting with its smaller neighbour, which it invaded in February 2022 under the dubious premise of demilitarizing and “denazifying” the country.

The war eventually settled into what appeared to be a steady, grinding conflict along a heavily fortified front 620 miles long, involving more drone strikes and artillery bombardments than major troop movements, CBS said.

But in August, the impasse appeared to be over when the Ukrainians launched a shock attack on Russia’s Kursk region, and Russian forces began advancing along a 95-mile front into the country’s eastern regions.

The summer campaign forced Kiev to cede thousands of square miles of territory to invaders backed by missiles, glide bombs, drones and artillery.

Russia’s superiority in men and equipment has greatly affected Ukrainian forces, which have been funded and supplied by Western countries that have, at times, been reluctant to provide further aid.

Putin said Russia’s goal is to seize the Donbass region, an industrial center consisting of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces. Russia now reportedly controls about 80% of it.

The Russians captured the eastern city of Ukrainsk on September 17, then slowly began a pincer movement aimed at seizing Voledar, CBS said.

Although the Russian Defense Ministry did not mention the invasion in its daily battlefield report, Russian Telegram channels posted videos of soldiers waving Russian flags over the destroyed city.

Although neither side revealed its casualties, they said that many had died in the conflict.

“After suffering many losses as a result of long battles, the enemy did not stop trying to seize Voledar,” Ukraine’s Eastern Command said on Wednesday.

The command continued: “In an attempt to control the city at any cost, he managed to direct reserves to carry out side attacks, which exhausted the defenses of the units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.” “As a result of the enemy’s actions, there was a danger of the city being surrounded.

“The Supreme Command has given permission to carry out a maneuver to withdraw units from Volidar in order to preserve personnel and combat equipment, to take positions for further actions.”

The newly captured city could provide a launching point for Russian advances deeper into the country, and could help them cut off Ukrainian supply lines to the southern front.

Currently, Russia controls almost the entire Luhansk region and just over half of Donetsk.

With mail wires