The front line in eastern Ukraine is a patchwork of Russian and Ukrainian attacks
Sep 7, 2024
The Ukrainian army’s 53rd Mechanized Brigade raised a flag atop a ruined grain elevator in the town of New York in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast on Friday or Saturday. The banner signals the return of Ukrainian forces to central New York, a month after Russian troops mostly captured the town.
It’s not an isolated incident. Ukrainian troops are counterattacking in several sectors along the eastern front, blunting the momentum of a Russian offensive that kicked off late last year and has seen Russian forces make gains along several eastern axes—most notably, capturing Avdiivka and then marching on Pokrovsk and its vital supply lines.
New York lies 13 miles north of Avdiivka on a separate axis of Russia’s 30-month wider war on Ukraine.
The Russians are still advancing in some areas. This weekend they captured parts of Hrodivka, eight miles east of Pokrovsk. But the scattered Ukrainian counterattacks complicate Russian planning—and offer the Ukrainians a glimmer of hope in the east in the ninth month of a long, hard year for them.
A shortage of Ukrainian troops led to New York’s capture last month. The shortage was in part the result of the controversial decision by Ukraine’s top leaders to invade Russia’s Kursk Oblast with a strong force drawn from eight or so Ukrainian brigades.
The invasion undermined separate efforts to stabilize the front line in the east. “The number of available units for such stabilization efforts was significantly reduced,” Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight explained.
But even as it sent more troops into Kursk to exploit weak Russian defenses in the oblast, the Ukrainian general staff was eventually able to generate a small reserve force of around five brigades—in part by tapping the national guard, which belongs to the paramilitary interior ministry rather than the ministry of defense.
Last year, the national guard expanded and strengthened several of its brigades, lumping them together into a so-called “offensive guard” that includes the 12th Azov Brigade as well as the Kara-Dag Brigade, which recently took up positions south of Pokrovsk and promptly counterattacked.
The influx of national guard troops led to New York’s partial liberation this weekend. Bolstered by the Azov troopers, the army’s 53rd Mechanized Brigade was able to go on the attack with its T-72 and T-64 tanks and BMP fighting vehicles.
The battle is far from over. According to the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies, “combat engagements persisted in the northern and eastern parts of New York, north of New York and in the eastern part of Nelipivka,” which abuts New York to the north.
At the same time the 53rd Mechanized Brigade was fighting its way into central New York, Russian forces were marching into Pivnichne, on the eastern edge of the city of Toretsk, two miles north of New York.
Today the eastern front line is a patchwork of Russian attacks and Ukrainian counterattacks—and a mix of small losses and small gains for Ukraine. Still, that mixed news is the best news Ukraine’s eastern forces have gotten in months.
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Sources:
1. Frontelligence Insight: https://frontelligence.substack.com/p/what-the-fall-of-pokrovsk-could-mean
2. Center for Defense Strategies: https://cdsdailybrief.substack.com/p/russias-war-on-ukraine-070924
3. Ukraine Control Map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1xPxgT8LtUjuspSOGHJc2VzA5O5jWMTE&ll=47.50751714509709%2C34.14477250205766&z=6
4. WarTranslated: https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1832436191477821729