Ukraine Advances In Kursk, Toretsk As Depleted Russians Retreat, Vs Trump Claims

Despite Trump's false claims and Putin's bravado, Russian forces are retreating in the two most crucial sectors of the front - Kursk and Toretsk - after failing in their attempts to take Pokrovsk. 

The implication is that the Russians are desperate for Trump to intervene before collapse leads to Ukrainian breakthroughs - and he knows it. His objective is to help save Putin so that he has more free rein for his own authoritarian designs. JL 

David Axe reports in Forbes:

Despite Trump’s insistence that Zelensky and Ukraine “are not in a very good position,” Ukrainian forces are counterattacking along at least two of the most important sectors of the 800-mile front-line in Ukraine. They are losing control. There are reports of complete encirclement of Russian occupiers in several areas.” In pushing back the Russians, the Ukrainian brigades around Toretsk recently successfully counterattacked on the eastern edge of the 250 mile salient Ukrainian forces occupy in Kursk Oblast. What’s especially ominous for the Russian field armies is that they’ve been reprioritizing Toretsk after getting repulsed outside Pokrovsk. The Russian units around Toretsk are falling back.

It’s not for no reason that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had the confidence to stand up to U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance during their disastrous Oval Office press conference on Friday, during which Trump and Vance falsely accused the wartime leader of being ungrateful for past U.S. aid.

 

Despite Trump’s insistence that Zelensky and Ukraine “are not in a very good position,” Ukrainian forces are counterattacking along at least two of the most important sectors of the 800-mile front-line of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine.

As recently as a few months ago, the Russians had the momentum in their three-year wider war. That’s no longer the case, especially in and around the city of Toretsk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast. The site of bitter urban fighting for much of last year, including the deliberate demolition of towering highrises by both sides, Toretsk—or what was left of it—fell to Russian forces in early February.

A mining city with a pre-war population of 35,000, Toretsk is important. It straddles high ground overlooking important supply lines threading along the Ukrainian side of the front line.

Which is why the Kremlin celebrated the city’s fall on Feb. 7. “As a result of active offensive operations ... the city of Dzerzhinsk in the Donetsk People’s Republic [sic] was liberated," the Russian defense ministry announced, using a Russian name for the city.

But Russian control of the city didn’t last long. Two weeks after the Russians fully occupied the ruins of Toretsk, the Ukrainians counterattacked—and swiftly advanced back into the city.

 

Accidental reveal

One Russian military blogger inadvertently revealed the extent of the Ukrainian advance during a botched effort to downplay the advance on Monday. “The crests decided to counterattack, flew in on Feb. 23 in their American armored vehicles to the border areas of the city of Toretsk,” the blogger wrote, using a slang term for Ukrainian troops. “The enemy was eliminated!”

In fact, the video the blogger posted alongside his missive revealed Ukrainian troops in central Toretsk—and not just in the “border area,” as the Russian claimed. A week later, western Toretsk was again contested, according to the definitive Ukraine Control Map. And it was possible a few Russian troops were clinging to an exposed salient jutting into the urban no-man’s-land.

“Fighting continues in the city center, and the enemy is losing control,” the Estonian analyst WarTranslated noted. “There are reports of complete encirclement of Russian occupiers in several areas.” In pushing back the Russians, the Ukrainian brigades around Toretsk—including the 92nd Assault Brigade and the 100th Mechanized Brigade—join sister units that recently successfully counterattacked on the eastern edge of the 250-square-mile salient Ukrainian forces occupy in western Russia’s Kursk Oblast.

What’s especially ominous for the Russian field armies in Ukraine is that they’ve been reprioritizing the Toretsk axis after getting repulsed outside the fortress city of Pokrovsk, 25 miles southwest of Toretsk. “The Russian command in the theater of war is focusing its main attention not on Pokrovsk but on the adjacent Novopavlivka and Toretsk directions,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies explained.

 

But the reinforcements haven’t helped in Toretsk. At least not yet. Even bolstered by troops transferred from the Pokrovsk axis, the Russian regiments in and around Toretsk are falling back.

In so doing, they make a mockery of Trump’s claim, in his combative White House meeting with Zelensky, that the Ukrainian president is in a weak position. “You have to be thankful,” Trump raged. “You don’t have the cards. You’re buried there. You people are dying. You’re running low on soldiers. Listen, you’re running low on soldiers.”

It’s true that Ukraine has struggled to mobilize enough infantry to keep its best brigades fully manned. But it’s not true that Ukrainian forces are getting “buried.” In fact, in recent weeks they’ve advanced in at least as many sectors as they’ve retreated.