Ukrainian cities fortified in Vladimir Putin scenes

A small group of wrestling snipers on the battle in the 93rd brigade in Ukraine recently received a frustrating order: Rush to the front lines near Pokrovsk where they were placed two months ago. Russian forces have just advanced about 10 kilometers, one of its largest gains this year.

“I looked at the map and offered my eyes widely.

It was sent alongside other Ukrainian brigades, and they finally succeeded in containing Russian progress until several settlements north of the city were strategically important, according to public employees in Ukraine and independent evaluations by war control groups.

“It could have been bad for everyone,” Shabred told the Financial Times on a training ground near the front lines. He added that the Russian forces had pressed forward, as they may have completely surpassed Bokrovsk and exceeded the defenses in the Kamurorsk region, which represents the way for further progress.

The Russian incursion into the sharp focus on the military importance of cities and towns in the East still controlled. Russian President Vladimir Putin is calling for Kiev to give up the entire regions of Donetsk and Luhanskk, known combined in the name of Donbas.

Ukrainian President Foludmir Zelinski rejected this proposal, so that US President Donald Trump said that the peace agreement is likely to involve “some land swap.”

Russian forces have intensified their attack along the entire front lines, entered the northern Slovenk forest and crawled closer to Kostyantynivka, according to independent groups monitoring Russian progress.

In the Kharkiv region, the fighting also began on the northern outskirts of Kopangsk, a town on which Russia seized in the early hours of its invasion in 2022, which returned to the hands of Ukrainian after a few months.

A spokesman for the Ukrainian army admitted on Wednesday that Russian forces “are trying to obtain a foothold” in the Dniproptrovsk region – an area not under Russian control.

The idea of ​​giving up simply was met with anger throughout the region. In the Donetsk training land, “Nikitos”, a 25 -year -old sniper from Horlevka, a town in eastern Ukraine now under Russian control, remained silent for a moment when he was asked how his reaction would be if he ordered his brigade to withdraw.

“There will be no such request,” he said. “I can’t believe it.”

Ukrainian officials and soldiers say it is not just a principle or legitimacy. In northern Donetsk, a 45-km belt is largely designed and the smaller settlements scattered along a major road is now a huge barrier-the last major defense line in the region.

“Moreover, you have open terrain, and no major industrial clusters, and there are no areas that make it possible to build a stable defense,” said Dmytro Zaporozhets, a spokeswoman for the eleventh army Corps in Ukraine.

The “Castle Belt” begins at the southern end of Kostyantynivka, a town with a population of 65,000 people. The Russian forces gradually approach the city from three directions, as they recently got 10 kilometers from its suburbs.

The road that connects Kostyantynivka to a caramersk is now full of charred cars as military trucks and four -wheel drive vehicles to evacuate barrels on the road lined with anti -baron networks.

“It has become more dangerous in recent weeks,” said Evgenini Takshiv, a humanitarian worker. He spoke to FT after the completion of four evacuation runs from Kostyantynivka, and 15 of the local population extracted the elderly when the icebergs hit the center.

With Russian drones targeting outside the front lines, any movement has now become a great risk.

“The road, the road inside and outside, is now more dangerous.” He added that as soon as the soldier reaches his position on the front lines, he feels like a “king”. ))

The Russian army has struggled to seize urban areas, with a Battle of Bakhtoub that lasts for nearly a year and the ruins of Chasif Yar only under Russian control after 15 months of brutal fighting.

On the contrary, the cities adjacent to Kramatorsk and Slovyansk are about three times the size of Bakhmut. The industrial center of Kramatorsk also features some of the largest metal factories in the region. With the closure of long production lines, they can be converted into strong strongholds.

“Every house, every building, every residential block can be used to stabilize the defense,” said Zaporozhets.

The two cities are not the largest urban centers in parts of Donetsk that are still under Ukrainian control, but rather the surrounding areas – with large rivers and hills – also provides a natural barrier that the Russian forces find it difficult to overcome.

About Kramatorsk and Slovyansk strongholds, which are still home to about 100,000 civilians, defensive actions have continued in recent months, with the intersection of deep anti -tank tanks in mountainous fields of sunflower and corn surrounding the bloc.

Sirhi Samitinkin, a local farmer who took the landscape paint on ammunition boxes to raise money for the army, said that the work had hindered – but did not completely stop – agricultural activity.

He said farmers are trying to find a “common tongue” with military engineers to keep some access to their fields.

More more, the regular strikes of drones and missiles target vehicles and infrastructure throughout the city, which destroyed a grain storage warehouse in Samitinkin two weeks ago.

He said in front of the devastating building: “If you ask how to work, well, here is what it is.”

The nearest Russian units are now 18 km from the Kramatorsk Center, according to the Deepstate Group, a war control group.

As the war approaches, the strikes became more frequent and more intense in a long city of its heavy industry, but it still explodes with restaurants and shaving stores that meet the needs of the army.

The Russian “Kamikaze” aircraft has achieved the Russian short -term Druzhkivka, a town less than 10 km south of Kramatorsk. Last Friday alone, 41 Glide bomb hit the Kramatorsk suburbs and more than 50 homes were damaged, according to the local authorities.

In Karameorsk, 43-year-old Titiana Laova was fed the cats in front of her apartment late last month when a Russian strike was separated in the next building-in the face of Al Salam Street-seven people were killed.

Lahova, the soft humanitarian worker who escaped from its mother city Donetsk when the Russian -backed forces seized it in 2014, losing consciousness, where the debris landed on it.

The explosion led to the damage and leg of the eardrum, and left it shocked. However, she, just like many locals, is not yet ready to give up her home.

She said, “What does it mean to waive the Donetsk region? I don’t understand. I have already fled Donetsk.” “I couldn’t go home for 11 years.”

Drawing maps by Iditi Bahandari