Latest news with #ViktorTrehubov
The Star
28-07-2025
- Politics
- The Star
Russia at the gates: How Ukraine defended a strategic city for months
DONETSK REGION (Reuters) -For months, Ukraine has picked off Russian soldiers by the thousand around the frontline city of Pokrovsk, using small drones armed with bombs to tie down a numerically superior force. Now though, Russian troops are creeping forward in a summer offensive that has probed weak spots in Ukraine's defences and last week saw some Russian soldiers enter the city for the first time, according to footage on Ukrainian and Russian Telegram channels and geolocated by Reuters. Ukrainian soldiers' success in stopping their enemy from taking Pokrovsk since last year has long thwarted one of Moscow's central military goals, although the city itself is heavily damaged and all but a few hundred of the 60,000-strong population has fled. Pokrovsk sits atop large coking coal reserves and until Russian forces moved closer was important to Ukraine's military supply lines in the country's east. Reuters spoke to more than a dozen sources including Ukrainian soldiers and relatives of Russian soldiers missing in action around the city, and made two trips to the area over four months to examine the shifting tactics in the key theatre of the eastern front. The Pokrovsk front is the most active in the war, with 111,000 Russian soldiers amassed there for the summer offensive, Ukrainian top military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi has said. Russia's forces initially aimed to seize Pokrovsk early last year, first with frontal assaults and later trying to encircle the city, which Russia calls by the Soviet-era name Krasnoarmeysk, or Red Army town. Ukraine slowed the advance this spring by deploying experienced units, laying minefields and other defensive barriers, while harassing Russian forces with large numbers of drones, said Viktor Trehubov, spokesperson for the military administration that covers Pokrovsk. 'They didn't stop trying to advance, but we were repelling them well,' said an artillery unit soldier who goes by call sign Vogak and serves on the Pokrovsk front. Since then, Moscow's forces have picked up the pace, adapting and expanding the use of drones in their own arsenal. Russia has built on the lessons used in pushing Ukrainian forces out of its Kursk region, where it first scaled the use of fibre-optic cable drones that cannot be stopped by the electronic jammers both sides used to confuse regular radio-controlled drones, analyst Michael Kofman said. The spools of hair-like cable give them enough range that Russia can threaten Ukraine's forces and logistics 25 kilometres behind the front line. Russia has more of the fibre-optic drones than Ukraine, giving them an advantage, said Roman Pohorilyi, the founder of Ukrainian open-source research group DeepState. The advances accelerated after Russia took control of a highway in May that connects Pokrovsk to Kostiantynivka, another of Ukraine's 'fortress cities' in the east, a map generated by DeepState shows. One of the main roads to the city is covered by nets to protect vehicles from Russian drone strikes. Serhii Dobriak, the head of the local military administration, last week said it was increasingly hard to deliver food to the city and that grocery stores would have to close in the coming days. While faster than before, Russia's territorial gains remain minor, with only 5,000 square kilometres (1,930 square miles) of Ukraine taken since the start of last year, less than 1% of the country's overall territory, according to a June report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. In total, Russia has occupied around a fifth of Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the entry of small groups of Russian troops into Pokrovsk was insignificant and that they were "all destroyed" by Ukraine's soldiers. Russia's Defence Ministry did not respond to detailed requests for comment for this story. AT WHAT COST? Serhii Filimonov, commander of a Ukrainian military battalion called 'Da Vinci Wolves,' which operates around Pokrovsk, saw first-hand how Russia's glacial advance on the city over the past year cost it heavily in killed and injured soldiers in the first half of 2025. Russian soldiers tried to advance by stealth but were hounded by Ukrainian soldiers flying small quadcopter drones mounted with cameras and explosives, he said. 'Every prisoner says drones are the thing they are most afraid of, the thing that constantly kills them, and the things they see when they sleep, the nightmares they have,' Filimonov told Reuters in an interview in April, citing debriefs of Russian soldiers captured by his men. Filimonov said groups of attackers were given a phone with a location pinned on a map, and told to head towards it. If the first group was killed, another one was sent to replace them, he said, citing the debriefs. Reuters was unable to independently verify his account. The Russians operated in raiding parties of around a half a dozen, often advancing on foot because large vehicles are an easy target for drone pilots, Filimonov and Trehubov said. Some left their vehicles as far as nine miles (15 km) from the front line and walked the rest of the way to be less visible to drone operators, Filimonov said. Others have taken to motorbikes to outpace the aircraft, piloted by Ukrainian soldiers often wearing virtual reality-style goggles attached to a drone's camera, offering a first-person view of the route and target, Trehubov said. The Ukrainian resistance in and around Pokrovsk has blocked Russia's ambition of taking the remaining parts of Ukraine's Donetsk region, one of President Vladimir Putin's principal war aims. Although its significance to Ukraine as a military supply centre has already faded, Kyiv-based military analyst Serhii Kuzan said Pokrovsk's fall could free up Russian troops and open the door to more Russian advances in the region. More than a million Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the invasion of Ukraine in February, 2022, almost a quarter of those since the start of this year, according to British military intelligence estimates. Reuters could not verify these numbers. Neither Ukraine nor Russia gives official data on their own personnel losses. ILL-TRAINED Towards the end of last year, Moscow's commanders deployed soldiers with very little training, including convicts or injured men, according to conversations with five relatives of Russian soldiers. The relatives did not want their identity or the soldiers' identities published for fear of reprisals. The army struggled to account for who was missing or dead, the relatives said. One soldier was sent on a combat mission on the Pokrovsk front despite having an injury to his leg sustained on previous missions, according to a relative. 'He could barely walk,' the relative said. He went missing on March 9, when his vehicle was hit. The relative said a member of his unit, to whom she had spoken, had heard him over the radio after the strike, saying he had been badly wounded. He was listed as absent without leave, she said, though she believes he is dead or taken prisoner. Another soldier, recruited from a Russian penal colony on December 18, was given a week of training and on December 26 was sent on a combat mission on the Pokrovsk front, according to a relative. The relative said he had not been heard from since. Shortly before the mission, the soldier rang relatives to ask them to send 50,000 roubles ($600) so he could buy a walkie-talkie. She said the soldier was officially listed at the end of December as having gone absent without leave, but she believed he was dead. A third soldier, a 21-year-old father of two from western Siberia, signed a contract with the army in 2024 after he was promised a non-combat role far from Ukrainian frontlines and signing-on bonuses of 1 million roubles, or $12,000, according to his relative. But instead, he was sent to Ukraine and in late December, he was ordered on a raid near the village of Vovkove, on the Pokrovsk front. In January, he was designated as absent without leave. At the end of April his family was notified he had been killed in action on December 27, according to the relative and letters from the military seen by Reuters. His relative said the family received 5 million roubles and a monthly pension as compensation for his death. RUSSIA ADAPTS The overall commander of Ukraine's land forces, Major-General Mykhaylo Drapatyi, was given the additional direct responsibility for the part of the front that includes Pokrovsk in January, after another town fell. Drapatyi, who previously stopped a Russian offensive on the second city of Kharkiv, brought 'a fresh vision' to the battle, helping mount counter-attacks to disrupt Russian advances and threaten its local logistics, DeepState's Pohorilyi said. However, Russia's adaptation and new technology such as the fibre-optic drones have shifted the balance. What soldiers call the drone 'kill zone' stretches several kilometres either side of the front line. That creates challenges to sustaining logistical supply chains for both armies. Any vehicle bringing forward fresh supplies of men, ammunition, food and water can be targeted. The overall Russian advance over the whole frontline doubled from 226 square kilometres in April to around 538 square kilometres in May, according to open-source analyst Pasi Paroinen with the Finnish 'Black Bird Group'. DeepState estimated that Ukraine had its biggest territorial losses of 2025 in June. More than a quarter of the 556 square kilometres taken by Russia in June were on the Pokrovsk front, DeepState estimated. Filimonov's Da Vinci Wolves fight on, defending the city against Russia's latest recruits. 'Russia finds new victims, which it throws into the furnace,' he said. ($1 = 79.4000 roubles) (Reporting by Manuel Ausloos in the Donetsk region, Anastasiia Malenko in Kyiv and Maria Tsvetkova in New York; Editing by Christian Lowe and Frank Jack Daniel)
Straits Times
28-07-2025
- Politics
- Straits Times
Russia at the gates: How Ukraine defended a strategic city for months
DONETSK REGION - For months, Ukraine has picked off Russian soldiers by the thousand around the frontline city of Pokrovsk, using small drones armed with bombs to tie down a numerically superior force. Now though, Russian troops are creeping forward in a summer offensive that has probed weak spots in Ukraine's defences and last week saw some Russian soldiers enter the city for the first time, according to footage on Ukrainian and Russian Telegram channels and geolocated by Reuters. Ukrainian soldiers' success in stopping their enemy from taking Pokrovsk since last year has long thwarted one of Moscow's central military goals, although the city itself is heavily damaged and all but a few hundred of the 60,000-strong population has fled. Pokrovsk sits atop large coking coal reserves and until Russian forces moved closer was important to Ukraine's military supply lines in the country's east. Reuters spoke to more than a dozen sources including Ukrainian soldiers and relatives of Russian soldiers missing in action around the city, and made two trips to the area over four months to examine the shifting tactics in the key theatre of the eastern front. The Pokrovsk front is the most active in the war, with 111,000 Russian soldiers amassed there for the summer offensive, Ukrainian top military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi has said. Russia's forces initially aimed to seize Pokrovsk early last year, first with frontal assaults and later trying to encircle the city, which Russia calls by the Soviet-era name Krasnoarmeysk, or Red Army town. Ukraine slowed the advance this spring by deploying experienced units, laying minefields and other defensive barriers, while harassing Russian forces with large numbers of drones, said Viktor Trehubov, spokesperson for the military administration that covers Pokrovsk. 'They didn't stop trying to advance, but we were repelling them well,' said an artillery unit soldier who goes by call sign Vogak and serves on the Pokrovsk front. Since then, Moscow's forces have picked up the pace, adapting and expanding the use of drones in their own arsenal. Russia has built on the lessons used in pushing Ukrainian forces out of its Kursk region, where it first scaled the use of fibre-optic cable drones that cannot be stopped by the electronic jammers both sides used to confuse regular radio-controlled drones, analyst Michael Kofman said. The spools of hair-like cable give them enough range that Russia can threaten Ukraine's forces and logistics 25 kilometres behind the front line. Russia has more of the fibre-optic drones than Ukraine, giving them an advantage, said Roman Pohorilyi, the founder of Ukrainian open-source research group DeepState. The advances accelerated after Russia took control of a highway in May that connects Pokrovsk to Kostiantynivka, another of Ukraine's 'fortress cities' in the east, a map generated by DeepState shows. One of the main roads to the city is covered by nets to protect vehicles from Russian drone strikes. Serhii Dobriak, the head of the local military administration, last week said it was increasingly hard to deliver food to the city and that grocery stores would have to close in the coming days. While faster than before, Russia's territorial gains remain minor, with only 5,000 square kilometres (1,930 square miles) of Ukraine taken since the start of last year, less than 1% of the country's overall territory, according to a June report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. In total, Russia has occupied around a fifth of Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the entry of small groups of Russian troops into Pokrovsk was insignificant and that they were "all destroyed" by Ukraine's soldiers. Russia's Defence Ministry did not respond to detailed requests for comment for this story. AT WHAT COST? Serhii Filimonov, commander of a Ukrainian military battalion called 'Da Vinci Wolves,' which operates around Pokrovsk, saw first-hand how Russia's glacial advance on the city over the past year cost it heavily in killed and injured soldiers in the first half of 2025. Russian soldiers tried to advance by stealth but were hounded by Ukrainian soldiers flying small quadcopter drones mounted with cameras and explosives, he said. 'Every prisoner says drones are the thing they are most afraid of, the thing that constantly kills them, and the things they see when they sleep, the nightmares they have,' Filimonov told Reuters in an interview in April, citing debriefs of Russian soldiers captured by his men. Filimonov said groups of attackers were given a phone with a location pinned on a map, and told to head towards it. If the first group was killed, another one was sent to replace them, he said, citing the debriefs. Reuters was unable to independently verify his account. The Russians operated in raiding parties of around a half a dozen, often advancing on foot because large vehicles are an easy target for drone pilots, Filimonov and Trehubov said. Some left their vehicles as far as nine miles (15 km) from the front line and walked the rest of the way to be less visible to drone operators, Filimonov said. Others have taken to motorbikes to outpace the aircraft, piloted by Ukrainian soldiers often wearing virtual reality-style goggles attached to a drone's camera, offering a first-person view of the route and target, Trehubov said. The Ukrainian resistance in and around Pokrovsk has blocked Russia's ambition of taking the remaining parts of Ukraine's Donetsk region, one of President Vladimir Putin's principal war aims. Although its significance to Ukraine as a military supply centre has already faded, Kyiv-based military analyst Serhii Kuzan said Pokrovsk's fall could free up Russian troops and open the door to more Russian advances in the region. More than a million Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the invasion of Ukraine in February, 2022, almost a quarter of those since the start of this year, according to British military intelligence estimates. Reuters could not verify these numbers. Neither Ukraine nor Russia gives official data on their own personnel losses. ILL-TRAINED Towards the end of last year, Moscow's commanders deployed soldiers with very little training, including convicts or injured men, according to conversations with five relatives of Russian soldiers. The relatives did not want their identity or the soldiers' identities published for fear of reprisals. The army struggled to account for who was missing or dead, the relatives said. One soldier was sent on a combat mission on the Pokrovsk front despite having an injury to his leg sustained on previous missions, according to a relative. 'He could barely walk,' the relative said. He went missing on March 9, when his vehicle was hit. The relative said a member of his unit, to whom she had spoken, had heard him over the radio after the strike, saying he had been badly wounded. He was listed as absent without leave, she said, though she believes he is dead or taken prisoner. Another soldier, recruited from a Russian penal colony on December 18, was given a week of training and on December 26 was sent on a combat mission on the Pokrovsk front, according to a relative. The relative said he had not been heard from since. Shortly before the mission, the soldier rang relatives to ask them to send 50,000 roubles ($600) so he could buy a walkie-talkie. She said the soldier was officially listed at the end of December as having gone absent without leave, but she believed he was dead. A third soldier, a 21-year-old father of two from western Siberia, signed a contract with the army in 2024 after he was promised a non-combat role far from Ukrainian frontlines and signing-on bonuses of 1 million roubles, or $12,000, according to his relative. But instead, he was sent to Ukraine and in late December, he was ordered on a raid near the village of Vovkove, on the Pokrovsk front. In January, he was designated as absent without leave. At the end of April his family was notified he had been killed in action on December 27, according to the relative and letters from the military seen by Reuters. His relative said the family received 5 million roubles and a monthly pension as compensation for his death. RUSSIA ADAPTS The overall commander of Ukraine's land forces, Major-General Mykhaylo Drapatyi, was given the additional direct responsibility for the part of the front that includes Pokrovsk in January, after another town fell. Drapatyi, who previously stopped a Russian offensive on the second city of Kharkiv, brought 'a fresh vision' to the battle, helping mount counter-attacks to disrupt Russian advances and threaten its local logistics, DeepState's Pohorilyi said. However, Russia's adaptation and new technology such as the fibre-optic drones have shifted the balance. What soldiers call the drone 'kill zone' stretches several kilometres either side of the front line. That creates challenges to sustaining logistical supply chains for both armies. Any vehicle bringing forward fresh supplies of men, ammunition, food and water can be targeted. The overall Russian advance over the whole frontline doubled from 226 square kilometres in April to around 538 square kilometres in May, according to open-source analyst Pasi Paroinen with the Finnish 'Black Bird Group'. DeepState estimated that Ukraine had its biggest territorial losses of 2025 in June. More than a quarter of the 556 square kilometres taken by Russia in June were on the Pokrovsk front, DeepState estimated. Filimonov's Da Vinci Wolves fight on, defending the city against Russia's latest recruits. 'Russia finds new victims, which it throws into the furnace,' he said. REUTERS
Qatar Tribune
27-07-2025
- Politics
- Qatar Tribune
Russians attempt to encircle Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine
DPA Kiev After unsuccessful direct assaults on the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, Russian troops have now shifted to attempts at encirclement, local troop spokesman Viktor Trehubov reported on Ukrainian state television on Sunday. Efforts are being made, particularly from the east, to break through Ukrainian positions and encircle Pokrovsk, Trehubov said, adding that the defensive battle in the area near Kostiantynivka is ongoing. A direct assault on Pokrovsk reportedly makes no sense for the Russian military given the high losses, hence the attempt at encirclement. Pokrovsk has been a persistent hotspot on the fronts in eastern Ukraine for months. The city is located in the west of the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk at a strategically important transport hub. It is now almost completely destroyed. Ukraine has been defending itself against a full-scale Russian invasion for over three years. Meanwhile, at least three passengers have died in a Russian drone attack on a bus in the eastern Ukrainian region of Sumy. Additionally, a further 20 passengers were injured, according to the regional military administration. The information could not be independently verified. In the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, a 58-year-old woman died in a Russian attack, according to official reports. Two days earlier, a resident was killed and another seven were injured in a Russian attack on the city. The respective reports did not specify whether the people were victims of drone or artillery attacks. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday announced the restructuring and further armament of the navy during the conclusion of a major naval exercise. By the end of the year, two marine infantry brigades will be converted into divisions, with three more to follow shortly, Putin said. 'This will significantly increase the fleet's striking power and combat capabilities,' he stated. The five-day exercise, which concluded on Russia's Navy Day on Sunday, involved more than 150 warships and support vessels, 120 aircraft and helicopters, and over 15,000 soldiers, according to official information. The drills took place simultaneously in the Baltic Sea, the Arctic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and the Caspian Sea. The aim of the exercise was to defend against a large-scale naval attack, the Russian government said. The Kremlin accuses NATO of endangering Russia's security. The Western military alliance also conducted a naval exercise earlier this year: BALTOPS 2025. According to official figures, around 50 ships and approximately 9,000 soldiers participated in the exercise in June. In a video message, Putin described the navy as the 'pride and achievement of the fatherland.' However, the naval parade planned for Sunday — an annual event Putin started in 2017 — was cancelled for security reasons, unlike the military exercise. In the region surrounding St Petersburg, more than 10 drones were reportedly shot down in the morning, according to official information. Governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said a woman in the Lomonosov district was slightly injured by falling drone debris. St Petersburg's Pulkovo Airport was closed for several hours in the morning for take-offs and landings. The Russian military reported the downing of 99 drones nationwide. Putin called this year's Navy Day a wonderful holiday, but added, 'It is right that we spend the holiday in a combat and working atmosphere, with everyone in their place, and the fleet demonstrating its combat potential and quality.' The head of the Kremlin followed most of the naval manoeuvres via video transmission from the navy's main headquarters in St Petersburg.
Reuters
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Ukraine struggles to contain Russian summer advances as US aid stalls
KYIV, July 2 (Reuters) - Russia has made incursions near two towns key to army supply routes in eastern Ukraine, a Ukrainian military official said on Wednesday, as Moscow seeks a breakthrough in a summer offensive at a time of uncertainty over U.S. support for Kyiv. In recent weeks, Russia has amassed forces and despite heavy losses has advanced in rural areas either side of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka, which both sit on crossroads running to the frontline from larger cities in Ukrainian-controlled territory. Russia's advances on the front are matched by an intensification of drone and missile strikes on Kyiv and other cities, following signs that Washington's support for Ukraine's war effort is faltering. So far, the efforts by U.S. President Donald Trump have failed to achieve a ceasefire in the full-scale invasion launched by Russia in 2022. One of the aims of the Russian offensive is to occupy the rest of the Donetsk region. Now, they are using small assault groups, light vehicles, and drones to push towards the neighbouring region, said Viktor Trehubov, a spokesperson for the Khortytsia group of forces. "There are constant attacks with the intent of breaking through" to the border of the Dnipropetrovsk region at any cost, Trehubov said in written comments to Reuters. Russia now has 111,000 soldiers in the Pokrovsk area, which it has been trying to seize since early last year, Ukraine's top armed forces commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said last week, describing dozens of battles in the area every day. A decision by Washington to halt some deliveries of various weapons including precision rocket artillery to Kyiv will worsen the situation on the ground for Ukraine's forces, said Jack Watling, a senior researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, a think-tank. "The loss of these supplies will significantly degrade Ukraine's ability to strike Russian forces beyond 30 km (19 miles) from the front line and therefore allow Russia to improve its logistics," Watling said. Ukrainian blog DeepState, which uses open-source data to map the frontline, said the Russian military in June had seized 556 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory, which it said was the largest monthly loss of ground since November. Russian forces, which have numerical superiority, cut the main road linking Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka in May, complicating Ukrainian movements and resupply efforts. "The Russian advance is being contained, but their crossing of the Pokrovsk-Kostyantynivka highway is a strategic and logistical setback," Trehubov said. Heavy Russian losses have prevented Russian advances toward Kostiantynivka via Chasiv Yar, or along the western Pokrovsk front. "Now they are attempting (to advance) further away from populated areas," Trehubov said. DeepState also reported that Russian advances in June near Pokrovsk and nearby Novopavlivka accounted for more than half of all Russian gains along the entire frontline in all of Ukraine. Trehubov said Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka remain Ukrainian logistical hubs, despite setbacks and drone activity which make some defensive fortifications less effective. "(Drones) hinder logistics for both sides but don't make it impossible. Drones after all are not invulnerable," he said.
Al Etihad
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Al Etihad
Ukraine struggles to contain Russian summer advances as US aid stalls
2 July 2025 19:56 KYIV (REUTERS) Russia has made incursions near two towns key to army supply routes in eastern Ukraine, a Ukrainian military official said on Wednesday, as Moscow seeks a breakthrough in a summer offensive at a time of uncertainty over US support for recent weeks, Russia has amassed forces and despite heavy losses has advanced in rural areas either side of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka, which both sit on crossroads running to the frontline from larger cities in Ukrainian-controlled advances on the front are matched by an intensification of drone and missile strikes on Kyiv and other cities, following signs that Washington's support for Ukraine's war effort is far, the efforts by US President Donald Trump have failed to achieve a ceasefire in the full-scale invasion launched by Russia in of the aims of the Russian offensive is to occupy the rest of the Donetsk region. Now, they are using small assault groups, light vehicles, and drones to push towards the neighbouring region, said Viktor Trehubov, a spokesperson for the Khortytsia group of forces."There are constant attacks with the intent of breaking through" to the border of the Dnipropetrovsk region at any cost, Trehubov said in written comments to now has 111,000 soldiers in the Pokrovsk area, which it has been trying to seize since early last year, Ukraine's top armed forces commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said last week, describing dozens of battles in the area every day.A decision by Washington to halt some deliveries of various weapons including precision rocket artillery to Kyiv will worsen the situation on the ground for Ukraine's forces, said Jack Watling, a senior researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, a think-tank."The loss of these supplies will significantly degrade Ukraine's ability to strike Russian forces beyond 30 km (19 miles) from the front line and therefore allow Russia to improve its logistics," Watling said.
