MOSCOW—Russian troops on Wednesday took charge of the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar, a bastion that had resisted intense attacks since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Ukraine’s eastern military command said it had ordered a pullback from the hilltop coal mining town to avoid encirclement by Russian troops and “preserve personnel and military equipment.”
The Russian defence ministry did not mention Vuhledar in its daily battlefield report.
Russian Telegram channels, however, published video of troops waving the Russian tricolour flag over shattered buildings.
The town, which had a population of over 14,000 before the war, has been devastated.
The Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper said the last Ukrainian forces from the 72nd Mechanised Brigade, a unit famous for its resistance, had abandoned the town late on Tuesday.
President Vladimir Putin has said Russia’s primary tactical goal is to take the whole of the Donbas region—the Provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk—in southeastern Ukraine.
Russia controls about 80 percent of the Donbas, a heavy industry hub.
Vuhledar Taken in Rapid Russian Advance
Since Russia sent its army into Ukraine in February 2022, the war has largely been a story of grinding artillery and drone strikes along a heavily fortified 1,000-km (620-mile) front involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
But in August the battlefield became much more dynamic: Ukraine smashed through the border in Russia’s Kursk region in a bid to divert Russian forces, and Russian troops began advancing faster than before in eastern Ukraine.
Russian forces have been pushing westwards at key points along some 150 km (95 miles) of the front in the Donetsk region, with the logistics hub of Pokrovsk also a key target.
They captured Ukrainsk on Sept. 17 and then began encircling Vuhledar, about 80 km (50 miles) south of Pokrovsk.
Russia has been using pincer tactics to trap and then constrict Ukrainian strongholds. Images from the area showed intense bombardment of the town with artillery and aerial glide bombs.
Control of Vuhledar, which lies at the intersection of the eastern and southern battlefields, is significant because it will ease Russia’s advance as it tries to pierce deeper behind the Ukrainian defensive lines.
Russian bloggers said Russia could now try to push towards Velyka Novosilka, just over 30 km (20 miles) to the west.
Vuhledar also sits close to a railway line connecting Crimea to the Donbas region.
Russian forces currently control 98.5 percent of the Luhansk region and 60 percent of the Donetsk region.