Pressing ahead with a new summer offensive, Russian forces have entered the Dnipropetrovsk region of eastern Ukraine for the first time in three years of war — signaling their capacity to keep expanding the fight as cease-fire talks show little signs of progress.
Advancing west from the Donetsk region, the main theater of the ground war today, small squads of Russian soldiers began crossing into neighboring Dnipropetrovsk last weekend, according to three Ukrainian officers fighting in the area. A battlefield map by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, based on verified combat footage, now shows that Russian forces have secured a tiny foothold in the area.
Russia is unlikely to try to seize the new region, which it has signaled in the past that it has no intentions of doing. Instead, military analysts and Ukrainian soldiers view the push as both symbolic — aimed at denting Ukrainian morale by breaching a new region — and strategic, designed to bolster its defenses in neighboring areas where it has already dug in.
Still, both goals are likely to further widen the battlefield in a war now grinding through its fourth year. An officer with the call sign “Barbarossa” from Ukraine’s 72nd Brigade, which is currently fighting off Russian assaults into Dnipropetrovsk, said that Russia had accumulated “a lot of forces” in the area, and that he expected them to push deeper into the region.
Like other officers quoted in this article, he asked to be identified by his first name or call sign only, in keeping with military protocol.
Russia’s Defense Ministry first claimed on Sunday that some of its forces had reached the administrative border between Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk and were “continuing their offensive.” Ukraine’s top military command has so far denied that Russian troops have entered Dnipropetrovsk.
The Ukrainian officers said Russian forces had advanced, at most, along a few tree lines into Dnipropetrovsk and had yet to capture any settlement. Whether they can secure their advance, capitalize on the breach and push deeper into the region remains to be seen.
Still, by pushing into Dnipropetrovsk, Russian forces are taking the fight to a region that many Ukrainians thought would remain untouched by ground fighting.
Dnipropetrovsk is one of Ukraine’s largest regions, with a major industrial base and about three million residents. Those people include many who fled there from cities under attack in Donetsk, meaning the Russian advance could force some to flee for a second time.
Russia’s push also comes amid cease-fire talks that are taking place even as both sides have tried to demonstrate that they have the ability to keep fighting. Should Russia capture a sizable portion of the Dnipropetrovsk region, it could complicate Ukraine’s position in any negotiations to trade land.
Controlling the border area between Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk would also give Russia a stronger foothold to complete its takeover of Donetsk, around 70 percent of which it already controls. In particular, it would facilitate an assault on Pokrovsk, a Ukrainian stronghold in Donetsk it has so far failed to capture.
The advance also highlights Russia’s momentum on the battlefield. Last month, Russia captured over 200 square miles of territory in Ukraine, more than double its gains in April and the second-highest monthly advance since the first year of the war, according to the Black Bird Group, a Finland-based research organization tracking battlefield developments.
Months of slow but steady gains lie behind the push into Dnipropetrovsk. It took Russian forces a year of grinding combat to advance roughly 30 miles and finally cross into the region.
Along the way, Russian forces captured town after town, shifting tactics from the meat-grinder approach seen in the brutal battle for Bakhmut to a more adaptive strategy, using small assault squads to look for weaknesses and punch through Ukrainian lines.
“The enemy uses small-group tactics — two to four, sometimes six soldiers, moving from tree line to tree line or building to building,” said Barbarossa, from Ukraine’s 72nd Brigade.
The Russian advance is reflected in the retreat of medics from Ukraine’s 33rd Mechanized Brigade, who treat wounded soldiers at so-called stabilization points, small field hospitals typically set up several miles behind the front line.
Since the fall, the medics have relocated their stabilization point westward four times. They crossed into Dnipropetrovsk late last year, setting up in a building in Novopavlivka, near the administrative border between the two regions.
As Russian forces advanced in recent weeks, the medics were forced to move deeper into Dnipropetrovsk, according to soldiers from the 33rd Brigade. The building they were using in Novopavlivka, which a New York Times team visited this year, was later heavily damaged in a Russian strike.
Viktor, a Ukrainian army officer fighting in the area, said he expected Russian forces to try to capture Novopavlivka, which sits on strategically advantageous high ground, before pushing north toward Mezhova, the main town in the area.
Securing that stretch of land, he said, would allow Russia to carve out a roughly six-mile-deep buffer zone to protect its flanks in neighboring Donetsk, and set the stage for a new assault on Pokrovsk.
Constant Méheut reports on the war in Ukraine, including battlefield developments, attacks on civilian centers and how the war is affecting its people.
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