Oleg Davygora09:33, 30.07.24

At the end of March, Russian troops focused their attention on two small villages: Urozhainoe and Staromayorskoe.

For months, Ukrainian soldiers in southeastern Ukraine were able to repel Russian attacks .

Even with a shortage of artillery shells, the 58th Motorized Rifle Brigade fought off repeated attacks, protecting the limited gains of its counteroffensive last year, The New York Times reports  .

The brigade suffered casualties but repelled every Russian attack, including that of an elite marine brigade, leaving burnt-out Russian armor littering the open steppe.

But in late March, Russian forces focused their attention on two small villages: Urozhayne and Staromayorskoye. It took the Russians three months, but after taking Staromayorskoye in June, they finally broke through the exhausted Ukrainian defenders and captured Urozhayne.

“The loss of the villages was a blow to Ukraine, coming amid recent Russian gains on many parts of the front line and because Ukrainian marines fought so hard to liberate them during a bloody counteroffensive,” the report said.

For the fighters of the 58th Brigade, which had been defending Urozhainoe since October, and the National Guard units attached to them, it was doubly difficult. 

Soldiers and officers who visited these two villages say that there was not a single civilian there, and the houses were so destroyed that there was nothing to defend.

“The fighting took place in the ruins, from basements. There were a few trenches, but there were no defensive structures and it was impossible to build them,” said Karai, 43, an army major who was in Urozhayne and saw some of the earlier fighting. 

Urozhnaya consists of only two streets, and Russian troops already occupied half the village in June, Karay said.

“For a month and a half it was like two packs of dogs fighting. There was so much stuff flying around that the wounded could only be evacuated at night. So there came a point when keeping people there made no sense,” he added.

The end, when it came, was lightning fast and forced a rapid retreat from the village.

A 40-year-old National Guard member who asked to be identified only by his first name, Mark, made the dramatic post on the social media platform X. The New York Times has verified his identity.

Ordered to help defend Urozhainoye on July 8, his unit “hit the jackpot,” he wrote. Taking cover in a basement, they endured four days of intense Russian bombardment.

By July 12, their house was under attack by drones. Its commander warned them that the Ukrainian unit ahead had retreated and the Russians had taken up positions in the house opposite. At first light, the men were ordered to retreat to another position, which they did safely as a new bombardment began.

Mark described how at 6am three Russian armoured personnel carriers rushed past his position, deploying infantry to block their path. The main assault had begun.

His unit was ordered to retreat across the fields as the road was under the control of the occupiers. At first everything was organized, but after a few hours it turned into a desperate fight under fire, in which there were wounded and dead.

“Enemy drones were constantly circling over the retreating groups, adjusting enemy artillery fire,” Mark said.

An hour later he came under fire and was wounded in both legs.

“I couldn’t go any further,” the soldier added. 

He applied a tourniquet to his leg and saw groups of retreating soldiers pass by. A National Guard soldier using the call sign Ruberoid stopped to help.

Mark said that, led by Ruberoid, he crawled through underbrush and a minefield to a designated casualty collection point. A second wounded man tried to follow him, but was too weak and told them to leave him. It took him more than 12 hours to reach the aid station.

In conversations after the village fell, soldiers on the nearby front said they felt the strain of three large-scale Russian attacks in October, November and February, followed by three months of intense fighting in Urozhaynoye. 

Members of the 58th Brigade spent the last day hunkered down in mud trenches on the front lines near Urozhanye, listening for incoming shells and fending off explosive drones with handheld electronic jammers. They erected metal fences and covered the many openings with carpets to block the small but deadly exploding drones.

“The most dangerous moment for people is when units change places after several days on the front line and often come under fire,” the journalists note.

The 58th Brigade’s sniper unit has retrained to operate as a drone team and has been in Staromayorskoye since June.

“We’ll hold them off as long as we can,” said a 28-year-old sniper who goes by the call sign Stan and now works as a drone pilot.

He showed videos on his phone of his successful drone strikes on Russian vehicles, a lone motorcyclist and an ammunition depot in a village.

“They are constantly trying to attack our positions, mostly in small groups on motorcycles. They go into the forests and dig in there. They are spreading like cockroaches,” he said of the Russian troops.

(C)UNIAN 2024