Russia has captured two Ukrainian towns in the country’s east as it continues its advance in the Donetsk region.
Meanwhile, Kyiv downed 11 drones overnight in the week after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made an important trip to the US to lay out his ‘Victory Plan’.
In an apparent counterattack, one person was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in Russia’s Belgorod region, according to the local governor.
Two key fronts have emerged in the ongoing war in Ukraine, one in the Kursk region, after Kyiv’s shock summer incursion, and the other in the east where Moscow’s forces are trying to capture key strategic towns.
The eastern front has remained the site of the most intensive fighting, with recent weeks having seen Russia claim a series of towns and villages in the Donetsk region.
That continued this week when Russian forces captured Vuhledar and Verkhnokamianske.
Vuhledar was a Ukrainian stronghold and soldiers there had resisted a Russian offensive for over two years.
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But the Ukrainian military said it pulled troops from the town and retreated to avoid being encircled.
“Senior command granted permission to carry out a manoeuvre to withdraw units from Vuhledar in order to preserve personnel and military equipment, and take positions for further actions,” the eastern military command said on Wednesday.
Russian telegram channels published videos of soldiers waving the Russian tricolour flag over destroyed buildings in the town.
Once home to 14,000 people before the war, the town has since been devastated with almost all its residents having fled.
Local media said the town finally fell when the last of Ukraine’s 72nd Mechanised Brigade, a unit famous for its resistance, left late on Tuesday.
However, despite some Russian war bloggers celebrating the capture, Moscow’s prolonged fighting there over more than two years has likely cost it heavy personnel and equipment losses.
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Also, Vuhledar, while important, does not underpin Ukraine’s defence in the region and the Institute for War cited Russian sources who expressed doubt that it falling would lead to a breakthrough.
The strategic importance of the coal-town is two fold, it’s located on important high ground and is close to railway lines.
Capturing it allows Russia to better protect its own logistic routes and gives them an improved vantage point for attacks on Ukrainian forces and supply lines.
It, along with Verkhnokamianske, is another notch in Russia’s belt and a step closer to the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk – about 50 miles (80km) north of Vuhledar.
Neither side disclosed the losses suffered in fighting for the town and both claimed the other paid a high price.
The pincer tactic used to capture Vuhledar has become one increasingly used by Russia to trap and constrict Kyiv’s strongholds.
The fall of Vuhledar is a microcosm of Ukraine’s current predicament.
The US has so far refused to grant Ukraine permission to strike deep into Russia with its long-range missiles and a recent controversial mobilisation drive has failed to produce a new class of soldiers capable of holding the line.
Russian drone attack
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s forces destroyed 11 of 32 Russian drones launched overnight, its air force said.
Another four drones left Ukrainian airspace in the direction of Russia and ten others were lost in northern and central
Ukraine as a result of countermeasures, it added.
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Port infrastructure in the southern Odesa region was targeted, with a grain facility and buildings at a border crossing to Romania damaged, as well as thousands being left without power in the northern Sumy region, officials said.
The attack hit Ukraine’s Izmail district near the Danube River, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram.
He added the crossing had temporarily suspended operations and two lorry drivers, including a Turkish citizen, had been injured.
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Separately, an attack hit an electrical substation in Sumy, damaging equipment, Ukraine’s energy ministry said on Telegram.
Officials added that the attack led to power cuts for over 80,000 people.
