Russian troops are taking territory at a speed not seen in Donbas since the beginning of their special military operation.

On Wednesday, the Russian army achieved its greatest military victory in more than six months of fighting in Ukraine by taking control of Vuhledar, a strategic area that opens the door to southern Donbas.

“Indeed, our soldiers are already in Vuhledar. They raised the Russian flag on the local administration building,” reported Yan Gaguin, an advisor to the Donetsk People’s Republic. A few minutes later, the Ukrainian army’s Khortytsia operational-strategic group announced the withdrawal of the troops that had been defending this stronghold since March 2022.

The capture of Vuhledar is the Kremlin’s biggest success since the seizure of Avdiivka in February, the main town under Ukrainian control on the outskirts of Donetsk’s capital.

The TASS agency reported that the Ukrainian army had suffered “enormous losses” for refusing to abandon the defense of Vuhledar in time, something confirmed by other media, which included testimonies of Ukrainian soldiers criticizing their commanders for a hasty retreat, often on foot.

The war monitoring platform DeepState, which is close to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, also confirmed the city was lost, while the Ukrainian General Staff did not even mention the situation in that city in its daily report.

Vuhledar, which had more than 14,000 inhabitants before the war, was one of the main targets of the Russian offensive that began in Donbas in October 2023. Given the continuous attacks on the Crimean Bridge, the railway line between Donetsk and the peninsula became a logistical alternative, but its proximity, just a few kilometers from Vuhledar, made it too unsafe.

For that reason, Russian authorities were even forced to build a new railway line between the southern Russian region of Rostov and the town of Volnovakha in Donetsk. Due to the losses suffered during the two major offensives led by the Russian army in the first winter of the war, Moscow changed its tactics.

From frontal assaults with mechanized brigades, which were destroyed by minefields and Ukrainian units stationed in multi-story buildings located on the high ground where the city is situated, the Russians shifted to attacking with small detachments from the flanks, betting on a war of attrition.

The final assault on Vuhledar began less than two weeks ago and was facilitated by the capture of the mining operations located north of the city. Ukrainian military personnel admitted that the loss of the stronghold is a direct consequence of the severe shortage of manpower to maintain their positions.

Without the capture of Vuhledar, it was impossible to gain control of all of southern Donbas. Now, Moscow has a clear path ahead. According to the U.S. media, Russian troops are taking territory at a speed not seen in Donbas since the beginning of the military campaign.

In the coming weeks, Ukraine will very likely also lose control of Pokrovsk, one of the main objectives of the current Russian offensive, along with Toretsk. One of the goals, further north, is the town of Kurakhove, which holds vast lithium resources, one of the most valuable assets in this war.

Additionally, the Russians are already advancing eastward to besiege Velyka Novosilka, another important stronghold near the border between Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that the situation on the eastern front is very complicated upon his return from the United States, where he sought approval for the use of long-range missiles against Russian territory, a red line for the Kremlin.