Damaged building in Kurákhov, Donetsk, Ukraine.
“Powerful defensive bastion”, Kurákhov is now under Russian control. In November, Ukraine lost 610 square kilometers of territory — 20.3 square kilometers per day.
The Russian Army took the Ukrainian bastion of Kurákhovin the eastern region of Donetsk, after several months of intense fighting, the Russian Ministry of Defense revealed this Monday.
“As part of the offensive by units of the Southern military group, the city of Kurákhov, the most densely populated urban center in the southwestern region of Donbasswas completely released”, indicated the ministry on the social network Telegram.
The Ukrainian surveillance group DeepState, which the agency said monitors the front line through open sources, showed that most of the region, surrounded for months, is now under Russian control.
Important and powerful defensive bastion
According to the Kremlin source, “for 10 years the Kiev regime transformed the city into a powerful defensive bastionwith a wide network of firing points and underground tunnels”.
The city is protected to the north by the Kurájove dam, “which substantially limited the maneuver possibilities of the Russian assault units,” he added.
To defend the city, Ukraine sent a large number of troops, “which included nationalist units and foreign mercenaries, supported by artillery and tanks”, Defense said, according to which the Ukrainian army concentrated 26 battalions with more than 15,000 soldiers in Kurákhov .
“Thanks to the professional actions of the Russian forces, during the liberation of Kurakhov the enemy lost 80% of its men (more than 12,000 people), about 3,000 combat vehicles, including 40 tanks and other armored vehicles. The average daily casualties of the Ukrainian army ranged between 150 and 180 soldiers, including dead and injured,” according to the ministry.
The taking of this city, a important logistics center“made it considerably difficult to supply the Ukrainian rearguard and military in the Donetsk sector, as a result of which the Kiev regime lost the possibility of bombarding the civilian population of Donetsk with its artillery”, he explained.
A fundamental defensive node in the Ukrainian lines in the south of Donbass, the capture of Kurákhov allows troops to enter the operational space and “increase the speed of liberation of the territories of the Donetsk People’s Republic”, added the Russian military command.
The alleged achievement comes less than a month after the military chief of Donetsk became commander of the region’s Operational Tactical Group, a command that concerns the defense of all directions of Pokrovsk and Kurákhov.
Ukraine loses more and more territory
O pace of the Russian offensive increased in the second half of last year and, especially from August onwards, territorial losses increased every month.
In November, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost 610 square kilometers of territory, or 20.3 square kilometers/dayin clashes with Russian troops.
The greatest territorial losses are recorded in the eastern regions of Donetsk and . It was on the territory of the Donetsk region that the Russian army concentrated the greatest offensive potential and achieved the greatest successes.
Ukraine, which launched one on Sunday in the region of Kurskwhere Moscow forces have been trying to push back Ukrainian troops for the past five months, lost more than 3,600 square kilometers of territory by 2024compared to the 540 square kilometers it no longer controlled a year earlier and the 430 square kilometers it managed to liberate from Russian occupation, according to data from the Russian military analysis platform.
After securing control of Kurakhov, Russian forces will focus on capturing the cities of Toretsk and, in the Donetsk region, as they continue to advance towards the important Pokrovsk, a city just 32 kilometers from Kurákhov.
