The stall continues to the front in Ukraine. And Moscow ranks the guard of the Kremlin

From our correspondent
KIEV – «At the front there is no respite. Just go to Chasiv Yar and Pokrovsk to realize it ». Word of the Ukrainian military still unfolded on the east front with which the Courier It is in contact.

Three years of war, thousands of young people. While the eyes are aimed On Istanbul where Russian President Vladimir Putin is invited To meet his Ukrainian counterpart, the tsar does not retreatneither on the diplomatic field nor on the military one. According to the Ukrainian military spokesman Ivan Petrychak of the 24th mechanized brigade, Moscow forces have deployed the presidential regimentan ENLITE unit of the EFSB also known as the Kremlin Regiment.

The battle

Chosen bodies, put on the field as if to let me understand that, if they want, Russians can take Chasiv Yar. But not only. To fight in the small city of glycini abbarbicated on one of the few hills close to the Siverskyi Donetsk river and distinguished by the fury of the battle since the mid -2024, there are also former members of the Wagner mercenary group and fighters of the extreme right unit Russich.

In recent weeks Putin’s forces also torn from Ukrainians the control of Kotliarivka, another village near Pokrovsk, the Eastern military hub that could Open the road to Dnipro in Moscowunder siege of summer in what is perhaps the most important variation on the front of the last few months. Then, the Moscow war machine advanced for kilometers through the large fields of Lugansk and Donetsk.

And, since last month, according to the leaders of the Ukrainian defense, At the forefront assaults increased by about 30 percent. A picture that brings military experts close to Kiev to warn the risks of a possible Russian offensive. In addition to operations on the eastern front, Russia has started what ISW calls his « main subordinate operation », exceeding the international border north of the second largest city in UkraineKharkiv, in May 2024. Several villages were conquered and thousands of civilians fled.

Surprise attack

It is not better for Kiev also in Kursk. In an interview with Guardianon February 11, the Ukrainian President Zelensky had suggested that the territory controlled by Russia in Ukraine could have been exchanged with that conquered by its military in the Russian western region as part of a peace agreement. If in fact, last summer Ukraine took control of part of the region with a surprise attack launched across the border by advanced up to 30 kilometers deep in the Russian region and claiming more than 1,200 sq km of Russian territory and 93 villages, since then Moscow has recovered practically everything.

Yet – the experts of the ISW – the front line, still move, moves really slowly. A Pokrovsk, The innovative tactics of the Ukrainian forces, which combine the use of drones and earth forces, have caused significant losses of Russian troops and equipment and slowed down the offensive. Furthermore, Moscow has not conquered big cities since the summer of 2022: there is talk of 1,627 square kilometers in Ukraine and in the Russian Oblast of Kursk between January and April 2025. The main advantage of Putin, therefore, is always only one: the possibility of sending thousands of soldiers to the front without repercussions.

Ukrainian military intelligence states that about 620,000 Russian soldiers are deployed in Ukraine and Kursk. Of these, only in the last year, they would have been killed in 45,000. An eCatombe that pairs with the Ukraine one. And that many hope will stop soon.