Russian Forces Fully Control Bastion of Vuhledar in East Ukraine, War Bloggers Say

A satellite view of Vuhledar, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine, September 29, 2024. (2024 Planet Labs Inc./via Reuters)
A satellite view of Vuhledar, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine, September 29, 2024. (2024 Planet Labs Inc./via Reuters)
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Russian Forces Fully Control Bastion of Vuhledar in East Ukraine, War Bloggers Say

A satellite view of Vuhledar, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine, September 29, 2024. (2024 Planet Labs Inc./via Reuters)
A satellite view of Vuhledar, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine, September 29, 2024. (2024 Planet Labs Inc./via Reuters)

Russian troops have taken complete control of the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar, a bastion that had resisted intense Russian attacks since the beginning of the 2022 war, Russian war bloggers and media said on Wednesday.

Russian Telegram channels published video of troops waving the Russian tricolor flag over shattered buildings. The town, which had a population of over 14,000 before the war, has been devastated, with Soviet-era apartment buildings smashed apart and scarred.

The Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper said that Vuhledar had finally fallen after the last Ukrainian forces from the 72nd Mechanized Brigade, a unit famous for its resistance, abandoned the town late on Tuesday.

The SHOT Telegram channel and pro-Russian war bloggers confirmed that Vuhledar was under total Russian control, though there was no official response from either the Russian or Ukrainian militaries.

On Tuesday, a regional Ukrainian official said Russian troops had reached the center of Vuhledar, a coal mining town located on strategic high ground.

Russian forces in eastern Ukraine have advanced at their fastest rate in two years since August, even though a Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk region sought to force Moscow to divert troops.

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia's primary tactical goal is to take the whole of the Donbas region in southeastern Ukraine. Russia controls just under a fifth of the country as a whole, including about 80% of the Donbas.

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.

BASTION FALLS

Despite the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk in early August, 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 encircled the hilltop town of Vuhledar, about 80 km (50 miles) south of Pokrovsk, essentially forcing Ukrainian forces to make a choice: retreat or face certain capture.

Russia has increasingly 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.

Neither side discloses losses. Both sides said the other paid a high human price for the town.

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, the Black Sea peninsula which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, to Ukraine's industrialized Donbas region, which comprises Donetsk and the eastern region of Luhansk.

Russian forces currently control 98.5% of the Luhansk region and 60% of the Donetsk region.



Harris Reiterates Support for Gaza Ceasefire as Conflict Escalates

Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she departs after speaking at the Tribal Nations Summit in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, Nov. 16, 2021, in Washington. (AP)
Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she departs after speaking at the Tribal Nations Summit in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, Nov. 16, 2021, in Washington. (AP)
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Harris Reiterates Support for Gaza Ceasefire as Conflict Escalates

Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she departs after speaking at the Tribal Nations Summit in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, Nov. 16, 2021, in Washington. (AP)
Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she departs after speaking at the Tribal Nations Summit in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, Nov. 16, 2021, in Washington. (AP)

Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Washington will continue to pressure Israel and other players in the Middle East to reach a ceasefire deal in Gaza even as advocates say that the United States has not thus far used its leverage over its ally.

In an interview with CBS news show "60 Minutes," Harris said that diplomatic work with Israel is "an ongoing pursuit," according to a clip released on Sunday.

Harris sidestepped a question in the interview on whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a "real close ally."

"I think with all due respect the better question is do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people and the answer to that question is yes," Harris said, Reuters reported.

Harris reiterated Washington's position to support Israel's right to self defense against Iran and Iran-backed militant groups like Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah.

"Now the work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles," Harris said.

"We're not going to stop in terms of putting that pressure on Israel and in the region including Arab leaders," Harris said.

Washington's occasional condemnation of Israel over the war's civilian death toll has mostly been verbal with no substantive change in policy.

Advocates say Washington has not put pressure on its ally by refusing to put an arms embargo that anti-war protesters around the United States and the world have demanded for months. Protests were also held over the weekend.

President Joe Biden laid out a three-phase ceasefire plan for Gaza on May 31 but a deal between Israel and Hamas has not been reached due to gaps in exchanges of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, and Israel's demand that it maintain presence in a corridor on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip bordering Egypt.

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023.

Israel has also been separately carrying out a military campaign in Lebanon which in recent days has killed hundreds, wounded thousands and displaced over a million.