DONETSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — Days before the leaders of Russia and the U.S. hold a summit meeting in Alaska, Moscow’s forces breached Ukrainian lines in a series of infiltrations in the country’s industrial heartland of Donetsk.
This week’s advances amount to only a limited success for Russia, analysts say, since it still needs to consolidate its gains before achieving a true breakthrough. Still, it’s a potentially dangerous moment for Ukraine.
Attention has been focused on Pokrovsk — a key highway and rail junction that once was home to about 60,000 and now is partially encircled — but Russian forces have been probing for weaknesses north of the city, according to battlefield analysis site DeepState. The forces found a gap east of the coal-mining town of Dobropillia, and advanced about 10 kilometers (6 miles).
Ukraine’s military has been repelling these attempts, he said, although DeepState said the situation has not been stabilized.
Ukrainian forces have tried to plug the gaps by extensive use of first-person-view drones — remotely piloted devices loaded with explosives that allow operators to see targets before striking.
These FPVs have turned areas up to 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) from the front into deadly zones on both sides of the line. But because the Russians attack with small groups, it’s hard to counter with drones alone.
“We can’t launch 100 FPVs at once,” the pilot said, noting the drone operators would interfere with each other.
With tactics and technology roughly equal on both sides, the Russians’ superior manpower works to their advantage, said Bielieskov, the Kyiv-based analyst.
“They have no regard for human life. Very often, most of those they send are on a one-way mission,” he said.
Ukraine’s military said Thursday additional troops have been moved to affected areas, with battle-hardened forces like the Azov brigade being deployed to the sector. However, the Deepstate map doesn’t show any changes in favor of the Ukrainian army.
Michael Kofman, a military analyst for the Carnegie Endowment, said in a post on X that it was too early to assess if the front line was collapsing,