Frontline report: Ukrainian defenders turn Russian blitz near Toretsk into carnage

16 December 2024. Today, there are a lot of important updates from the Toretsk direction, Donetsk Oblast.

Here, Russian forces, unable to break through the northern flank, redirected their efforts southward, in an effort to escape the misery of urban combat. Instead, they found themselves in a deadly trap, stuck in the lowlands with Ukrainians on the heights, allowing Ukrainian forces to unleash precise and devastating tank raids.

The primary objective of the Russian forces in this area is to capture Toretsk. However, the battle for the city, with its complex urban warfare dynamics, has proven exceptionally difficult for them. Toretsk, along with the surrounding settlements of Zalizne, Druzhba, and Pivnichne, forms a 30-square-kilometer urban agglomeration similar in size to Bakhmut.

This scale has allowed Ukrainian forces to effectively slow the Russian advance over the past six months. As a result, the Russians have suffered unsustainable daily casualties—up to 100 per day—during their attempts to secure the town. This high attrition rate has forced them to shift their focus to the flanks, hoping to encircle and isolate Toretsk with fewer losses.

Shift to the southern flank

As mentioned in a previous reports, the Russian attempt to flank over the northern part of the town ended in failure. This left the Russian forces with one remaining option: the southern flank. The Russian advance in this area was made possible by their control of Niu-York or New York, which allowed them to gather forces and equipment here. Their plan is to push north of Niu-York along the Kryvyi Torets River toward Shcherbynivka. Capturing the village would enable the Russians to launch flanking attacks on Toretsk, sever the main supply route to the town, weaken Ukrainian defenses, and potentially set the stage for a renewed offensive from the north.

Ukrainian tactical high-ground advantage

However, the Russian advance on the southern flank puts their forces in a precarious position. If we look at the topographic map, we can see that Shcherbynivka and the surrounding settlements are located in the lowlands of the Kryvyi Torets River valley.

This gives Ukrainian forces the advantage of higher ground to the west of Shcherbynivka, at Katerynivka, and from Toretsk, allowing them to establish fire control and effectively suppress any Russian attempts to advance toward Shcherbynivka, Leonidivka, and Petrivka. As a result, Russian forces would find themselves trapped in a cauldron, exposed to fire from all directions.

Russian assaults and Ukrainian counterattacks

Despite these tactical disadvantages, the Russian commanders decided to initiate attacks in this area, hoping that the advancing forces would be able to conceal themselves from fire in residential houses and consolidate their positions. To improve their concealment and the chances of success, Russian forces deployed and concentrated their forces in small groups within residential areas of Niu-York and Nelipivka at night, to prevent their detection by the Ukrainians.

This allowed small infantry groups of up to eight Russian stormtroopers to attempt infiltrations through Ukrainian lines under the cover of night. However, geolocated footage reveals that Ukrainian drone operators quickly detected and eliminated the Russian units as they sought shelter in between the destroyed houses. Additionally, Ukrainians preemptively countered the Russian assaults by launching tank raids on Russian forces gathering in the tree lines.

Combat footage shows how T-64BV tanks, aided by reconnaissance from drone units, effectively identified Russian positions and fired on them with their main guns, destroying the Russian force’s concentrations. These tank raids proved highly successful, thwarting larger Russian assaults by eliminating forces still grouped together during their final preparations.

Conclusion

Overall, the Russians launched a poorly planned counterattack on the southern flank of Toretsk, hoping to encircle the city from the south, only to place their troops in a semi-encirclement themselves, due to Ukrainian fire control from the high ground and subsequent tank raids. Russian forces also do not have the available reserves to properly intensify their assaults on the flanks.

Several Russian analysts and soldiers on the ground have already critiqued their commanders for sending wounded Russian soldiers back into battle for lack of available reserves. As the insufficient number of reserves does not allow Russians to maintain an overwhelming force in the area, Ukrainians are launching precision counterattacks to strike the Russian efforts where they are weakest.

In our daily frontline report, we pair up with the military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to keep you informed about what is happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.

Related:

• ISW: Russian army recruitment barely matches daily casualty rates
• Forbes: Ukraine’s anti-tank missiles still outshoot drones in Kursk combat
• ISW: Russians reach within 6 km from Pokrovsk, prepare attack from south
• “Human wave” attacks escalate near Chasiv Yar as Russian troops attempt reconnaissance against Ukrainian defenses
• Forbes: Ukrainians use “absurd” tactics in Toretsk as the last chance to save it from Russians
• Azov Brigade deploys Croatian rocket launcher near Donetsk Oblast’s New York
• Frontline report: Russia’s high-rise assault in Toretsk fails as Ukrainian forces use FPVs to decimate Russian troops
• Clock ticks for Russia: Combat operations escalate in Ukraine before Trump takes office