Moscow’s wide-reaching offensive in eastern Ukraine has continued making steady gains, as looming major war between Israel and Iran has largely taken over the news cycle and daily headlines.

Currently Russian forces have advanced to merely within a few a few kilometers of Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian logistical hub in the region. As we’ve highlighted before, the collapse of Pokrovsk will likely portend a Russian takeover of the whole of Donetsk. 

On Wednesday the Ukrainian army announced that it has fully withdrawn from the eastern town of Vuhledar, describing that it abandoned the area after being almost fully encircled, and coming under heavy Russian artillery bombardment.

Image of Russian flag flying over city center of newly captured Vuhledar.

“The High Command gave permission for a maneuver to withdraw units from Vuhledar in order to save personnel and military equipment and take up a position for further operations,” a Ukrainian unit deployed there said in a Telegram post.

It cited specifically the “threat of encirclement” and heavy troop losses, and there are reports that Russian forces had already taken control of Vuhleda by the time the Ukrainian announcement was made.

Vuhleda is a significant achievement, and suggests Russia forces will continue to plow through Ukrainian defenses, given it was dubbed a “fortress” city given its long having heavily-fortified surroundings and being in an upland position.

Even The Daily Beast recently underscored that while President Zelensky was pitching his ‘victory plan’ in Washington, his forces were suffering loss after loss:

On a visit to the U.S. last week, Volodymyr Zelensky gave the hard sell to his “Victory Plan” for Ukraine. In meetings with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, and an awkward encounter with former President Donald Trump, the Ukrainian leader insisted his country could still–with Western help–emerge victorious in its long-running war with Russia.

…After two and a half years of war, soldiers are tired. The same soldiers who gave Vladimir Putin’s forces a bloody nose after the February 2022 invasion, and pushed the invaders from Kyiv and Kharkiv, say they are under-equipped and complain that they are being ordered to carry out impossible missions as Kyiv struggles to supply the military with new recruits and acquire more Western weapons to ward off Russian advances.

The same report has said that in some instances entire battalions are refusing orders from command centers as they see them as “suicide missions”.

There is a significant amount of “radio silence” around the normal OSINT and mapper channels like ISW etc. Vuhledar fell, but Ukraine bled RU for it. Pokrovsk still stands, but RU tries to force Novohroddivka. Kursk is static. Maybe something is afoot? Attribution ISW pic.twitter.com/9effN2Q9T3

— Cognitive Dissonance 🇺🇸 🇺🇦 (@MasonFlakeAlpha) October 3, 2024

“With little training and battleground conditions far removed from what they signed up for at the beginning of the war, the men are sent on what they describe as suicide missions: They are told to get behind enemy lines to launch attacks, yet are not given the weaponry to do so successfully,” Daily Beast wrote.

As for Vuhledar, Russia’s defense ministry (MoD) and state media are in a celebratory mood. “As a result of conclusive operations by the units of the ‘East’ group of forces, the town of Ugledar in the DPR has been liberated,” the miliary announced Thursday.

US state-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has confirmed the below video:

The Ukrainian military has confirmed that it is pulling out of the strategic city of Vuhledar in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Russian social media channels posted videos purportedly showing troops installing Russian flags over shattered buildings in the city. pic.twitter.com/zdxJu4IrZg

— Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (@RFERL) October 2, 2024

Widely circulating images and footage show Russian troops raising a flag over Vuhledar’s central administrative building. Over the past two-and-half years, Russian forces had tried to take the town on a number of occasions, but were pushed back, until this week.