Decimus reports in Daily Kos:
At Siversk, did Russian commanders, hard-pressed for a victory, rush into another well-crafted Ukrainian trap? What looked like defeat was actually deception. Russian troops rushed in, believing the frontline had broken. Instead, they walked straight into a pre-planned kill zone. Surrounded by higher ground, cut off from secure flanks, and exhausted, Russian units are now exposed to Ukrainian artillery and drone strikes. Russian tactics, in Siversk, mean entering a destroyed city where every movement is recorded by Ukrainian drones. What worked in the “cauldron” of rural villages turn into a casualties in the Siversk trap. The deeper Russians enter the city and bring more manpower and equipment, the wider the target for strikes on the rear and logistics.
SIVERSK … after 41 months of a prolonged and grinding offensive by the Russians, the town which was previously home to 11, 000 people who mostly worked the dolomite mineral ore from the local hills, finally fell:
Ukraine loses Siversk, a bastion guarding the last quarter of the Donetsk region
The fall of Siversk, a small town that had 11,000 inhabitants before the full-scale invasion, came after several months of intense urban combat. It did not come as a surprise, nor did it signal an acceleration of the Russian invasion, which has continued to be laborious and extremely costly in terms of casualties. The Russian Armed Forces (RAF) took three and a half years to advance 12 kilometers from the city of Lysychansk (east of Siversk), which they captured in the summer of 2022.
The town was officially confirmed as seized by the Ukrainian General Staff on December 23, 2025 after much public outcry regarding dereliction of duty by two Ukrainian commanders who submitted false reports about the actual situation on the ground. They were dismissed and the situation is under investigation. Ukraine consequently decided to make a tactical and orderly withdrawal from the city itself into the surrounding hills. Ostensibly the movement was made to save the lives of Ukrainian troops.
Russia could not wait to make a big to-do about it with much ballyhoo regarding the “conquest” which will open the flood gates to Russian soldiers who will bring to heel all of Donetsk oblast. An uncharacteristically ebullient Putin, dressed in army fatigues, congratulated(via a live feed) the victorious elements of the Russian unit who had just taken over a tower of the local dolomite manufacturing plant, somewhere in the city of Siversk. One could tell from the effusive nature of Putin’s praise that after the recent propaganda debacle of the premature claims of victory at Kupiansk and Pokrovsk, he really needed this “victory”.
But was Siversk really a victory for Russia? And was there more to Ukraine’s seeming well-planned retrograde? Was Siversk really lost owing to desultory Ukrainian command performance? Did the Russian commanders, politically hard-pressed for a “victory” … any kind of victory, rush into another well-crafted Ukrainian “trap”?. Pokrovsk, Huliaipole and other places along the now 1,600km battle trace get all the headlines. And rightly so.
What is now unfolding in the city located in a dell of the dolomite hills in Eastern Ukraine, washed by the Siversky-Donets river, increasingly tends to give credence to the latter supposition. As is their wont, Ukrainian officials remain tight-lipped and are not saying . They are just busy steadily availing themselves of the excellent opportunity to unleash hell and rain havoc down on the Russians below in the bowl of the valley. Something akin to the Eagles’ Hotel California … “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave".
Siversk, located about 22 miles northeast of Bakhmut is situated in a river valley and lies at the bottom of a bucolic lowland. It is surrounded on all sides by smaller settlements, positioned near the Bakhmutka river, a tributary of the Siversky-Donets. The hills and terrain around Siversk, are distinctly steep and chalky(think of the coming infamous Ukrainian bezdorizhzhia(“mud season”). Additionally the elevated right banks(to the west and defended by Ukraine) are dissected with gullies and is swampy, particularly near the river. These elevated areas provide significant tactical commanding heights and key defensive positions.
And so it is that after much anguish and gnashing of teeth in the media about the loss of Siversk, a “bastion guarding the last quarter of the Donetsk region”, it is now turning out that:
What looked like defeat was actually deception.
In Siversk, Ukraine has just revealed one of the most calculated counteroffensives of the war. After months of brutal pressure, Kyiv appeared to abandon the city in December — but this was no collapse. It was a trap.
Russian troops rushed in, believing the frontline had broken. Instead, they walked straight into a pre-planned kill zone. Surrounded by higher ground, cut off from secure flanks, and exhausted after years of fighting, Russian units are now exposed to relentless Ukrainian artillery and precision drone strikes.
From above, Ukraine controls the battlefield — raining fire day and night while Russian forces struggle to escape. What was meant to be a victory has turned into a nightmare. Siversk is no longer a prize — it’s a vortex.
More here:Siversk became a trap for the Russians: how a city in the Donetsk region breaks their offensive on Kramatorsk
When a city the enemy considered prey turns into its own trap and reveals the weakness of Russia's strategy in Donbas.
Why Siversk is a “trap”: the logic of Ukrainian defense and Russian mistakes
The main element of the trap is geography plus fire control. Siversk is located in such a way that the approaches to it and the main Russian supply routes are fired upon from surrounding positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including from areas relatively safe for Ukrainian artillery and drone units. The deeper the enemy enters the city and tries to bring more manpower and equipment there, the wider the target becomes for strikes on the rear and logistics.
The second component is the nature of Russian tactics. In Donbas, the Russian army continues to use the “wave infantry plus artillery” approach, relying on numerical superiority and a willingness to ignore casualties. In the case of Siversk, this means endless assault groups entering a destroyed city, where every movement is recorded by Ukrainian drones and can be covered by strikes. Tactics that worked in the “cauldron” around small villages turn into a conveyor belt of casualties in the trap city.
And here:
Siversk has become a ‘kill zone’ for the occupiers: Defense Forces eliminate the enemy in the city
In the city of Siversk, the Defense Forces of Ukraine are actively and successfully destroying the enemy, as Ukrainian warriors know the city well, having defended it for a long time.
As if to underscore the foregoing, out of the 167 combat engagements on the front lines reported for February 2, 2026:
In the Kramatorsk sector, the enemy carried out one attack towards Chervone.
And how … “a city in the Donetsk region breaks their offensive on Kramatorsk”.
The Armed Forces of ADAPTIVE INDOMITABLE UKRAINE are taking every advantage of an enemy who is increasingly propaganda driven and lacks a coherent fighting strategy and is noisily trucking towards a defeat in slow motion.
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