
Since the second half of November, there has been a significant escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. This increase in war intensity is not accidental, but closely linked to Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential elections last November.
The future president, who will officially take office in one week (on 20 January), has repeatedly declared his willingness to end the war in Ukraine, even going so far as to promise to do so within 24 hours. The prospect of a change in US policy towards the conflict has prompted both Moscow and Kiev to adopt more aggressive strategies on the ground.
This dynamic responds to a well-established logic: intensify military pressure prior to any negotiations in order to present themselves at the negotiating table in a position of strength. With this in mind, the Russian Army has started to press massively on the front line, even more than in the past.
In recent weeks, Moscow's effort has mainly focused on several sectors: in Kurachove, now completely under Russian control; in Pokrovsk, located about 30 km north of Kurachove, where Russian forces have resumed the offensive a couple of weeks ago; and in the Kursk Oblast, where Moscow's Army has been progressively regaining territories lost to Ukrainian forces last August.
It was precisely in the latter sector that Ukrainian forces launched a counter-attack on 5 January, in what appears to be an attempt to regain ground and retake the initiative in the area, again with the aim of regaining positions with a view to possible negotiations.
Over the past two months, the focus of the Russian initiative in the Donbas has been the town of Kurachove, one of the key junctions of the Ukrainian deployment in the area. In order to consolidate control of the area, naturally protected on the northern flank by a large reservoir and to the south by a heavily fortified staggered belt, Russian troops have employed the tactics already successfully tested for the conquest of Avdiivka and Vuhledar, namely the envelopment deep on the flanks. Operations are supported by the the air force and the artillery to raze enemy villages and logistics to the ground, and then progressively penetrate the urban areas with groups of assault infantry.
Moscow forces pushed deep ‘behind’ the village and occupied its eastern part in mid-December, then gradually moved towards the west. On 31 December, Russian troops took control of the Elektrostal steel plant, located in the central-eastern part of the village. The town fell definitively into Russian hands on 5 January: from here, Moscow forces began to press in the direction of the village of Dachne, located about 5 km west of Kurachove.
From the village of Stari Terny (6 km north-west of Kurachove, under Russian control since mid-December) Moscow forces have advanced in the direction of the village of Shevchenko, of which they have now substantially taken control, and are heading towards the town of Andriivka. In the same sector, to the north, Russian forces have advanced evenly, reaching the villages of Petropavlivka, Slov'yanka, Ukrainka and Novojelyzavetivka (a town they took complete control of on 2 January), located about 12, 14, 20 and 23 km north-west of Kurachove, respectively.
The other Russian target in the Donbas is Pokrovsk, where since mid-November Russia has resumed its offensive by moving along the railway line north-west of Selydove. First, they conquered the small town of Zhovte, and from here they have advanced, over the last 3 weeks, for more than 4 km in the direction of the village of Shevchenko, now out of Ukrainian control. From this position, the Russian troops gradually advanced in a northerly direction until they reached, on 9 January, the village of Pishchane, located only 3 km from the ‘outer belt’ of the town of Pokrovsk.
The village of Pokrovsk is even more important for the Ukrainians than Kurachove, since it represents, on the one hand, a logistical crossroads between the central-southern part of the Donbas and the urban agglomeration of Slovjansk-Kramatorsk, and, on the other, a ‘gateway’ to the west towards an area that is scarcely defensible and extends up to Pavlohrad. Then, about 10 km west of the town, there is the Pokrovsk mine, a large coking coal mine, which represented - until the suspension of its operations, presumably since last November - one of the fulcrums of Ukraine's steel production.
The country's steel industry, in terms of economic importance, is second only to the agricultural sector. Russian forces are pressing in on the city not only from the south, as just analysed, but also from the east. On 31 December, the Russian Army captured the city of Vozdvyzhenka, about 25 km east of Pokrovsk. In this area, the Russian objective seems to be to take control of the T0504 highway (located 3 km north-west of Vozdvyzhenka), a key logistical and supply route for the Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk Oblast, as well as a link between the Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka (Bakhmut-Chasiv Yar) frontlines.
For the time being, the Ukrainian Army has repulsed the assaults against the highway, but Russia is deploying a lot of resources in this area (especially manpower) and along this route, which is likely to become a priority in view of what we can call the Battle of Pokrovsk.
The other area of fundamental importance in the conflict is the Russian region of Kursk. Here, as mentioned, on the morning of 5 January, the Ukrainian armed forces launched a counter-attack, albeit of limited scope at the moment, managing to break through the Russian lines north of the village of Cherkassoe Porechnoe.
After two days of intense fighting, according to some geo-locations, the Ukrainian forces managed to reach the village of Berdin, located north-east of Cherkassoe Porechnoe; in fact, in the last 24 hours, violent Russian counter-attacks have been registered both south of Berdin and nearby Russkoe Porechnoe, confirming the control of the Moscow Armed Forces over both towns and the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Berdin.
On the north-western part of the front, the Ukrainian forces opened a new line of attack, particularly in the Leonidovo area; however, this attempt to advance does not seem to have, at least for the moment, produced concrete results. On the contrary, despite the heavy losses suffered by Russian troops - difficult to quantify with certainty - the western part of the salient is currently under pressure from Moscow's forces.
Indeed, Russian troops have gained ground both east and south of Leonidovo, intensified their attacks on Kruglen'koe and Malaya Loknya, gained positions southeast of the former (in an attempt to push towards the villages of Nikolaevka and Viktorovka) and advanced towards the latter.
As mentioned at the beginning, a very important game is being played in Kursk for Kyiv: the more territory it manages to hold in the area, the more the latter can be, as mentioned, ‘exchanged’ in a hypothetical negotiation. Furthermore, it cannot be ruled out that Ukraine's strategic objective is to force Russia, as seen heavily engaged in the Donbas, to redistribute part of its troops, moving them from that front to strengthen the defences in Kursk (a strategy already partly adopted last August).
(In the image, a map of the Pokrovsk sector: in red is indicated the line of contact; the arrows indicate the directions of advance of the Russian forces).