Russia's Defense Ministry claimed on Sept. 10 that its forces had captured the village of Vodiane northeast of the fortified Donetsk Oblast town of Vuhledar.
The Kyiv Independent could not immediately verify the claim. A Ukrainian military spokesperson refused to comment.
Moscow's troops have recently ramped up their offensive near Vuhledar in southern Donetsk Oblast. The loss of Vodiane, lying just some 5 kilometers from the town, would increase the risk of Vuhledar's encirclement.
Russia's supposed capture of Vodiane was reported back on Sept. 9 by the Ukrainian crowd-sourced monitoring group DeepState.
While there are signs of stabilization near Pokrovsk, the focal point of the Russian offensive in Donetsk Oblast, the situation grows increasingly difficult near Vuhledar. The front-line town lies around 50 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of occupied Donetsk and around 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the administrative border with Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
The small mining town has lied close to the front line since 2014 and has been well-fortified in case of further Russian aggression. Vuhledar has withstood numerous attacks since the outbreak of the full-scale war in 2022 and has become a key to Ukrainian defenses in the southern part of Donetsk Oblast.
"The loss of Vuhledar would be not only a morale blow for Ukraine since this city has resisted plenty of assaults since 2022, but also a very serious development that can potentially threaten the security of the entire southwestern portion of Donetsk Oblast not yet occupied, along with the threat to Pokrovsk's southern flank," Federico Borsari, a fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), told the Kyiv Independent.
Kateryna Hodunova
