Russian troops are closing the encirclement of major cities in Donbass
MOSCOW, Aug 16 — RIA Novosti, Andrey Kotz. Russia still has the initiative on the entire front and is moving forward, liberating village after village. The summer campaign is nearing completion, which means that it is necessary to achieve maximum success before the autumn mudslide. The information about what is happening in the key areas of the special operation can be found in the RIA Novosti article.
Bypass the fortified area
Events are developing most actively in the north of the Donetsk People's Republic, where the Center group of troops is gradually tightening its pincers around Pokrovsk (Krasnoarmeysk), Mirnograd and Konstantinovka. In June and July, Russian troops seriously expanded the control zone around these cities and physically cut off several important supply routes for the Ukrainian garrisons. As Igor Kimakovsky, adviser to the head of the DPR, reported earlier this week, the "Center" managed to disrupt communication between Dobropolye and Pokrovsky. The AFU group defending the latter has only one escape route left: west along the M-30 highway to Pavlograd.
Combat work of the calculation of the Uragan MLRS installation
Image source: © RIA Novosti / Sergey Bobylev
According to the Ministry of Defense, over the past week, the Center group liberated three settlements in the Pokrovsky (Red Army) direction: Lunacharskoye, Suvorovo and Nikanorovka. Thus, the Russian troops significantly expanded the control zone north of Pokrovsk and approached Dobropillya. The liberation of this city will disrupt the logistics of the Armed Forces of Ukraine throughout the north of Donbass.
With further northward movement towards Kucherov Yar and the Golden Well, the main fortified area of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Donbass, deployed in the cities of Konstantinovka, Druzhkovka, Kramatorsk and Slavyansk, will be under threat. Ukrainians have been building this fortification since 2014. Its configuration is designed for defense in the eastern direction. Now the Center group has a chance to bypass it from the west, where there are no significant fortifications. If you cut off the fortified area from the supply, then the garrison defending it will be in a difficult situation.
Russian military personnel
Image source: © RIA Novosti / Sergey Bobylev
The current situation cannot but worry the Ukrainian military. Bogdan Krotevich, the former chief of staff of the Azov regiment, posted an open letter to Vladimir Zelensky on social media, where he called the situation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the north of the DPR critical. He admitted that Pokrovsk and Mirnograd were actually surrounded, and Konstantinovka was in a semi—circle. In his opinion, this situation has developed due to the "absolute lack of a strategic and even operational vision of the theater of operations" of the Ukrainian command.
The Northern bridgehead
Units of the Russian army continue to carry out combat missions on enemy territory, holding the front in the Sumy region, although the intensity of fighting in this area has decreased somewhat. The North group occupies positions along the Kondratovka—Andreevka— Alekseevka— Novonikolayevka — Yablonovka—Loknya line. From time to time, the Ukrainian military tries to counterattack and strikes at the western flank of the Russian troops, seeking to recapture Kondratovka and Andreevka. But the APU could not achieve success.
Fierce fighting for Yunakovka continues on the eastern flank of the North group in the Sumy region. This village, 20 kilometers from Sumy, was the main transit point for the Ukrainian Armed Forces units that attacked the Kursk region last summer. The attack aircraft of the "North" gained a foothold in the center of the settlement and took partial control of the N-07 highway, along which the invasion group was supplied. More importantly, Yunakovka is located at a commanding height, from where Sumy is shot through by barrel artillery.
The enemy is not going to surrender Yunakovka: its loss threatens the Ukrainian Armed Forces with a cascading collapse of the front in this sector. Reinforcements from other directions are regularly deployed to this settlement, including elite ones from the Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR). However, Russia has managed to pull in significant forces here and achieve local dominance in drones — in the so-called small air. As a result, the daily losses of the enemy killed in Yunakovka number in the dozens, wounded in the hundreds.
There has been no further advance of Russian troops deep into the Sumy region in recent weeks. Probably, the intention of the command is to hold the positions already occupied and thereby prevent the re-invasion of enemy forces into the territory of the Kursk region. Direct talks between Putin and Trump are extremely unprofitable for Kiev, so in the coming days he may decide on any provocation to disrupt them.
A dash to Stepnogorsk
The Russian foothold in the Dnipropetrovsk region continues to expand, where the Vostok group liberated the village of January in early August. This is the third settlement in the Dnipropetrovsk region occupied by our troops along with Malievka and Dachny. The western border of the DPR is gradually coming under the control of the Russian army. In the future, the formation of a buffer zone is possible here, which will allow the enemy's artillery to be moved away from the cities of Donbass.
The Ukrainian military
Image source: © Libkos/Kostiantyn Liberov
In the Zaporizhia direction, the Dnepr group continues to expand its control zone around the urban-type settlement of Stepnogorsk. A breakthrough to this village became possible after the liberation of the village of Kamenskoye by the Dnepr group at the end of July. The front in this sector of the Zaporizhia direction has been static since the autumn of 2023, when the Ukrainian Armed Forces counteroffensive finally ran out of steam. Control of the four thousandth Stepnogorsk will allow the Russian army to kill two birds with one stone.
Firstly, it is less than 30 kilometers from this village to the city of Zaporizhia, which makes it possible to work on the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the regional center with barrel artillery and FPV drones. Secondly, from here it is possible to advance east, towards Novoyakovlevka, in order to reach the rear of the enemy group in the area of the city of Orekhov, where, in fact, the counteroffensive of 2023 began. One way or another, the Dnipro group, which for a long time did not appear in the reports on the liberated settlements, will now more often please us with good news.
The Ukrainian military
Image source: © Andriy Andriyenko
The pace of the Russian army's offensive proves once again that Moscow retains the initiative in the war zone. The enemy is experiencing serious problems with the number of personnel in the most threatened areas. Groups of Russian troops are advancing simultaneously in several directions, which forces the Ukrainian Armed Forces to pull apart their already extremely stretched forces. But soon the enemy will not be able to plug all the holes at the front.
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