Russia claims capture of key Donbas city of Kurakhove as Ukrainian forces report ongoing fighting
Russian forces have fully captured the city of Kurakhove in Ukraine’s east, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced on January 6. Ukrainian officials have yet to confirm this claim.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff said in its morning update that Ukrainian troops had repelled 27 attacks in the Kurakhove sector over the past day. Ukraine’s Khortytsia group of forces also reported that fighting is ongoing in the Kurakhove sector, as Russia conducts assault operations in the city’s urban area and in the direction of the nearby villages of Petropavlivka and Dachne.
“As of this morning, battles were ongoing within [the city] limits, so the enemy’s announcements about capturing the city are clearly rushed,” Khortytsia group spokesman Viktor Trehubov told Suspilne Donbas.
A key Ukrainian stronghold in the Donetsk region’s southwest, the Russian Defense Ministry’s statement described Kurakhove as, “a powerful fortified area with a developed network of pillboxes and underground communications.” The battle for control of the city has been ongoing since mid-October, when the Russian army intensified its assaults in the direction of Pokrovsk.
Russia’s Defense Ministry also claimed that the Ukrainian army had lost more than 12,000 of the 15,000 troops deployed to defend Kurakhove, as well as about “3,000 pieces of various weapons and military hardware, including 40 tanks and other armored combat vehicles.” Meduza cannot independently verify these claims.
Located next to a reservoir, Kurakhove is home to a thermal power plant that was taken out of commission due to Russian shelling (undamaged equipment was dismantled for use at other damaged power facilities across Ukraine). The city also sits on the Donetsk–Zaporizhzhia highway, running between eastern and southern Ukraine.
According to Meduza’s military analysts, Russian forces reached the center of Kurakhove in mid-December, encircling nearly the entire city from the north, east, and south, and raising the Russian flag over the municipal government headquarters. At the time, however, Ukrainian forces still controlled the power station’s industrial zone and the pipe plant on the western side of the city. Ukrainian troops were forced out of the industrial zone just before New Year’s day and are now holding positions in Dachne, a village on Kurakhove’s outskirts, Meduza’s analysts say.
DeepState, an OSINT project with close ties to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, also shows that Russian forces have seized Kurakhove. This comes after Ukrainian analysts reported that Russian troops were advancing in the area on January 5.
Russia’s advance in Donbas has picked up speed in recent weeks, but its forces have only made gains in one strategic direction and have failed to push deeper into Ukraine’s defensive lines, Meduza’s military analysts note. Russian troops have repeatedly encircled Ukrainian formations in different parts of the front (as was the case in Kurakhove), but Ukrainian forces have always managed to break out of these “cauldrons.” Under the current conditions, the two sides are only capable of continuing to fight a war of attrition, Meduza’s analysts conclude.
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