Ukrainian War | In Russia, the capture of Vuhledar is hailed as the turning point of the war, Western experts deny

Russia succeeded this week in capturing the heavily fortified town of Vuhledar, whose control has been fought for for about two years. The city was considered very important for the defense of Ukraine, especially at the beginning of the war. Since then, the situation seems to have changed.

Vuhledar has been fiercely contested at times. For example, in the second spring, there was a visit to the area that lasted for weeks fightwhere the Russian forces were defeated and lost a lot of tanks and soldiers.

On Wednesday, however, Ukraine ordered its forces to withdraw from Vuhledar. The news agency reported on it, for example Reuters.

In Russia, part of the media has hailed the capture of the city as a great victory. Popular Lenta.ru– according to the news site, it would be a turning point in the war.

“After the capture of Ugledar, there is absolutely no effective line of defense all the way to Kiev,” claimed the docent of political analysis and social psychological processes, described as a military expert by the Lenta.ru website Oleg Glazunov. He used the Russian name Ugledar for Vuhledar.

Western ones however, according to experts, the takeover of Vuhledar is not such a big deal, even though it has an impact.

“The Russian forces have recently achieved important tactical victories but have not demonstrated the ability to capture operationally significant targets,” states the US think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW). in his assessmentwhich it published after the capture of Vuhledar.

According to ISW, the capture of Vuhledar is likely to improve the positions of Russian forces as they seek to advance north towards the highway between Donetsk and Zaporizhia and eliminate Ukraine’s wide frontal wedge. However, the change is not decisive.

“However, the fact that Russia took over Vuhledar alone does not radically change the operational situation in the western Donetsk region, and the Russian forces will probably have to make an effort to achieve their operational goals in the region,” states ISW.

It says Russia has lost a large amount of troops and equipment it assembled in the region in the months before it launched its summer offensive this year.

Ukraine also has a shortage, especially of soldiers. The main reason for the recent setbacks of the Ukrainians is the severe shortage of crew, evaluate reader Juha Kukkola From the National Defense University to STT.

Vuhledar was a coal mining town built by the Soviet Union in the 1960s, almost all of its approximately 14,000 inhabitants have fled, says Reuters. It has been considered important, especially in terms of service connections.

The city is at a fairly high point and there are good views of the vast areas of the surrounding steppe. When the city was in Ukraine’s possession, it was possible to fire cannons at Russian supply links.

The importance of the city in terms of Russian maintenance has been reduced by the fact that Russia has recently built a railway from Russia to Volhovaha, which is located south of the front, says an independent news website based in Latvia Medusa.

Changes in the frontline situation throughout this fall have caused Vuhledar to lose its importance as an important element of Ukraine’s defense, also states the British Broadcasting Corporation BBC’s Russian-language service.

Kukkola, interviewed by STT, also does not consider the loss of Vuhledar to be decisive for the course of the war.

A satellite image of the town of Vuhledar was taken on September 25. Picture: Planet Labs / Reuters