Russian forces over the weekend pushed into Urozhaine, a southern village won back by Ukraine last summer, the latest in a series of slow but steady advances that are reversing hard-won Ukrainian victories.
The Russian advances are a sobering development for Kyiv as its troops battle to contain attacks along a more than 600-mile front line.
In the east, Moscow’s troops are also pressing forward. They have entered the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, a Ukrainian stronghold in the region, and are closing in on a key Ukrainian supply route.
Ukraine hopes that weapons and ammunition recently supplied by Western allies will help it hold back Russian forces. That has already happened in the northeast, where beefed up Ukrainian defenses have managed to halt a Russian offensive that threatened Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. U.S. officials said last week that Russia was unlikely to make significant territorial gains in the coming months.
As the war reaches the two-and-a-half-year mark, Ukraine is pursuing a plan for a negotiated end to the fighting. President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that he wanted to hold a second international peace summit later this year and that Russian officials should attend. Moscow was not invited to the previous summit, held in Switzerland last month.
Here’s a closer look at the situation on the battlefield.
Russia appears to have retaken Urozhaine
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed on Sunday that its soldiers had seized Urozhaine, a small village in southeastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian military made no comment but maps of the battlefield compiled by analysts from combat footage also showed Urozhaine under Russian control, including a map by DeepState, a group with close ties to the Ukrainian Army.
Russian forces “occupied Urozhaine,” DeepState said Sunday, describing the loss as a “defense collapse.” Pasi Paroinen, from the Black Bird Group, a Finland-based organization that analyzes imagery from the Ukrainian battlefield, also confirmed the loss.
Urozhaine was one of the few southern villages that Ukraine liberated last summer, rare successes in an otherwise disappointing counteroffensive. But those gains are now slowly being reversed by advancing Russian troops. In May, Russia recaptured most of Robotyne, a village west of Urozhaine that was retaken by Ukrainian forces last August.
“Of course it’s unfortunate to see all of last summer’s gains slowly returning to Russian control,” Mr. Paroinen said. “As long as Russia holds the initiative, these slow roll backs will continue.”
Kyiv held on to Urozhaine for nearly a year after its liberation, despite an intense Russian bombardment campaign in recent months that involved glide bombs, heavy artillery and powerful rockets, Mr. Paroinen said. Ukraine has long argued that defending small places of little strategic value is worth the cost in lives and weapons because the attacking Russians pay an even higher price.
Until two days ago, maps of the battlefield showed that most of Urozhaine remained under Ukrainian control. That it fell to Russian forces in such a short space of time suggests that Kyiv’s troops may have suddenly withdrawn from the village, which now lies in ruins.
Russia’s push in the east
Ukraine’s army general staff said Sunday that the “hottest situation” along the front line was near Pokrovsk, an eastern city turned military garrison that sits on a key road linking several Ukrainian-held cities in the area.
Since Russia captured Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold in the east, this year, its troops have been slowly advancing toward the crucial road, called Highway T0504. They are now less than four miles south of the road, putting it well within range of Russian artillery and drone strikes.
Paramedics with Ukraine’s 59th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade evacuating a wounded soldier from the front line in the Donetsk region in May.
Should Russian forces reach the road, Ukrainian military operations in the eastern Donetsk region would be seriously hampered. Towns linked by the road and key to the defense of the region would have to be supplied by alternative, less practical routes.
In particular, cutting off the road would further isolate the hilltop town of Chasiv Yar, one of Moscow’s main targets.
Ukrainian troops recently retreated from the eastern edge of Chasiv Yar. Russian forces have also recently pushed into the nearby towns of Toretsk and New York, a settlement that took its name in the 19th century, increasing the pressure on Ukrainian lines.
Ukraine has stopped Russia’s offensive in the northeast.
The situation is not all gloomy for Ukraine. Its troops have now managed to halt Russian assaults near the city of Kharkiv, where Moscow opened a new front in late April and made its biggest territorial gains in more than a year.
Russian troops swooped across the border north and east of the city and quickly seized settlements in areas that were poorly defended. The Ukrainian Army rushed in elite brigades and slowly fell back to more heavily fortified positions, a strategy that eventually helped stop the Russian advance, experts say.
Newly delivered American weapons and ammunition also helped the Ukrainian Army in countering Russian assaults, as did U.S. authorization for Ukraine to strike Russian military targets across the border.
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Constant Méheut reports on the war in Ukraine, including battlefield developments, attacks on civilian centers and how the war is affecting its people.
A version of this article appears in print on July 16, 2024, Section A, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: Kyiv Is Scrambling to Contain Russia’s Gains Along the Front.
Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
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