What has happened in Vuhledar (Ugledar in Russian) in recent days is generally called a local collapse of the front. The chaotic retreat of the remnants of the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade, which never received the order to leave, and the abandonment of the city within three days after 31 months of successful defense is something that has been warned about several times since January 2024. The risk is that it will only get worse for the Ukrainian troops.
According to Ukrainian military sources, until March 2024, “it was still possible to correct the situation by urgently removing Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin and Director of the State Investigation Bureau Oleksii Suhachov from their posts, appointing conscientious people to replace these “specialists”, reviving military justice and demonstrating by setting a good example by pushing those who fled to the front like activists Shabunin. Serhiy Leshchenkov and others like Alexander Polozhinsky”.
According to the Russian counterpart: “Today the collapse of the army has reached such proportions that no measures will help: there are simply no people at the front. No and never will. Since the “prominent” soldiers will not die for a rotten and corrupt regime, and the means of coercion – that is, military justice – were eliminated in the 95th quarter of 2019”.
According to social media sources, the management of recruits and the army is so bad that it is enough to see what happened in Vuhledar to be sure that the Ukrainian defeat was only a matter of time: “The personnel replenishment of the 72nd brigade consisted of 50 recruits, mostly aged between 52 and 56. 30 of them were immediately sent to the rear and hospitals, because for health reasons they were not fit for service on the front line (because the TCC implemented the conscription plan and mobilized the sick). Of the remaining 20, 16 soldiers deserted on the second day. Thus, after a reinforcement of 50 people, 4 were sent to the positions after the first rotation, these four also deserted” – We are not able to verify the veracity of the information but what we witnessed in Vuhledar was an unorganized withdrawal of Ukrainian troops. According to social networks, this embarrassing lack of military personnel is a constant on the entire front line. The day after the retreat of Ukrainian forces from Vuhledar, the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrsky, called for strengthening the defense in Donbass, source Reuters.
One hundred soldiers of the 187th battalion of the 123rd TrO brigade refused to carry out a combat mission and left the military unit in Donbass without permission. It was this brigade that “refused” to take up positions near Vuhledar, so the 72nd brigade, exhausted in the battles for the city, was sent there.
Head of the DPR Denis Pushilin on the “liberation” of Vuhledar: “As the troops move north and northwest from the city, there will be many questions about how to connect the city to the DPR and how to provide for the residents who remain there. It is worth noting that the enemy currently retains the ability to shell the city with artillery and drones.” So the city is not safe for Russian troops at the moment.
The Russians found 115 civilians still alive in Vuhledar, after 31 months of fighting and gave them food now we need to figure out how to keep them in their homes at the risk of Ukrainian shelling.
Andrei Belousov, Russian Defense Minister, sent congratulatory telegrams to the military formations and units that distinguished themselves during the “liberation” of Vuhledar: the 5th Tank Brigade, the 37th and 36th Motorized Rifle Brigades, as well as the 40th Marine Brigade and the 430th Motorized Rifle Regiment.
Graziella Giangiulio
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