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After Livid Battles, Ukraine Loses a Pair of Arduous-Gained Villages
“It was like a struggle between two packs of canines,” mentioned an officer, describing the battle for one of many areas, Urozhaine. However “there got here a second when it made no sense to maintain individuals there.”
By Carlotta Gall and Kamila Hrabchuk
Pictures by David Guttenfelder
A crew of reporters spent a number of days within the Donetsk area speaking to troopers. The photographer David Guttenfelder was embedded for twenty-four hours with troops of the 58th Motorized Infantry Brigade on the entrance line.
For months, Ukrainian troopers in southeastern Ukraine had been capable of fend off Russian assaults.
Even with shortages of artillery shells, the 58th Motorized Infantry Brigade repelled repeated assaults as they fought to defend the restricted features from their counteroffensive final yr. The brigade took casualties however thwarted every Russian assault, together with one by an elite marine brigade, leaving burned-out Russian armor littering the open steppe.
However on the finish of March, Russian troops turned their deal with two small villages: Urozhaine and Staromaiorske. It took the Russians three months, however after occupying Staromaiorske in June they lastly broke by way of the weary Ukrainian defenders and reclaimed Urozhaine on July 14.
An account of the fierce protection and lack of Urozhaine and Staromaiorske was pieced collectively by way of conversations with Ukrainian troopers who served within the villages, in addition to by way of one survivor’s submit on social media. Official Russian posts on social media confirmed lots of the particulars.
The lack of the villages was a blow for Ukraine, coming amid latest Russian features alongside many components of the 600-mile entrance line, and since Ukrainian marine infantry had fought so exhausting to seize them through the bloody counteroffensive.
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