The Battle for Ugledar: how Russia seized the Ukrainian stronghold in southern Donetsk region.
How Did It All Begin?
Uglidar is one of the key cities in the Volnovakha district of the Donetsk region. It holds critical importance as it provides access to two other significant locations—Kurakhove, which the Russians are currently attempting to breach, and Velyka Novosilka—a stronghold on the border between the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, whose loss would create challenges for both areas.
0In 2022, Uglidar was firmly held. Subsequently, the Ukrainian command redeployed the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade named after the Black Zaporizhzhia Cossacks here, which had previously achieved significant success in battles in the Kyiv region. For a long time, the Russians struggled to make any headway against the Ukrainian defenses.
Moreover, in June 2022, Ukrainian forces attempted to launch a counteroffensive near Uglidar to push back the occupiers. Following that, several settlements south of the city changed hands multiple times.
One of the most active attempts to capture Uglidar occurred in February 2023. At that time, the 155th Brigade of the Pacific Fleet Marine Corps of the Russian Federation was attacking the city. Throughout the month, they conducted active mechanized assaults on the positions of Ukrainian troops; however, they did not achieve their main objective of fully capturing the city, and the Russian forces were, on the contrary, effectively defeated.
1What Happened Now?
At the end of August and the beginning of September this year, the situation around Uglidar significantly worsened. This time, the occupiers abandoned frontal assaults, as they had done in the winter of 2023, and instead employed a tactic already tested in the Pokrovsk direction—encircling the city and cutting off supply routes.
Thus, at the end of August, the Russians began to break through in the direction of the village of Vodyane east of Uglidar and also towards Prechistivka, to the west of the city. This effectively surrounded the city and initiated offensives from both sides.
2Some of the main defensive lines around Uglidar were the "Yuzhnodonbasskaya-1" and "Yuzhnodonbasskaya-3" mines, located to the south and east of the city, respectively.
They were unable to hold these positions for long—the Russians had numerical superiority, allowing them to push out the Ukrainian units. One of the mines was subsequently blown up.
Fighting then moved into the city itself and continued for about two weeks. On October 1, Russian propaganda Telegram channels spread videos showing the occupiers hanging their tricolor flags. During the day on October 2, the OSUV "Khortytsia" officially announced the withdrawal of troops from Uglidar due to the threat of encirclement.
"Suffering numerous losses due to prolonged fighting, the enemy did not cease attempts to capture Uglidar. In an effort to gain control of the city at any cost, they managed to redirect reserves for flanking strikes, which exhausted the defenses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
As a result of the enemy's actions, the threat of encirclement of the city arose. The higher command granted permission to maneuver for the withdrawal of units from Uglidar to preserve personnel and military equipment and to take positions for further actions," military officials reported.
The Russians were able to capture the city for several reasons. First and foremost, due to their numerical advantage. The head of the drone systems battalion of the 72nd OMBr, Andriy Nazarenko, stated that five brigades participated in the assault on Uglidar, which, according to him, were "fresh." Throughout the city's defense, Ukrainian forces destroyed nine enemy brigades.
At the same time, Nazarenko explains that the Russians did not capture the city all at once. According to him, the enemy actively stormed the flanks in the Uglidar direction for the last six months, and they only managed to seize the village of Vodyane in September.
The head of the Center for Counteracting Disinformation of the National Security and Defense Council, Andriy Kovalenko, also reported on the flanking strikes. He noted that the city was conveniently defensible due to its elevated position. However, the Russians managed to destroy it with guided aerial bombs, thereby advancing on the flanks.
"Unfortunately, UAVs and aviation are the only things that allow enemy infantry to move," Kovalenko believes.
What Does the Loss of Uglidar Mean?
With the loss of this city, Russian troops have captured the commanding height on which Uglidar stands, allowing the occupiers to fire upon the surrounding open terrain, as there are no structures there. Additionally, the Russians are getting closer to the next city in the Donetsk region—Velyka Novosilka, from which, notably, the summer counteroffensive of the Defense Forces in 2023 began.
Uglidar also provides a logistical advantage to the Russian army. As is known, in the fall of 2023, the occupiers began constructing a new railway line from Rostov-on-Don to the temporarily occupied Volnovakha in the Donetsk region, which became part of the railway connecting Donetsk—Volnovakha—Mariupol. This railway extends to Crimea and is one of the main supply routes for Russian forces in temporarily occupied territories. The loss of Uglidar would mean that the railway through Volnovakha could operate more or less fully, and it would be impossible to destroy it with conventional artillery.
At the same time, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) believes that the capture of Uglidar will not fundamentally change the course of Russian offensive operations in the western Donetsk region, as this city, in the analysts' opinion, is not an especially important logistical hub, and also because Russian forces controlled most of the main roads leading to Uglidar even before the city was fully captured.