A trophy in ruins: Evidence grows that Russia controls Marinka
The Ukrainian army said Thursday that its forces were fighting “in the vicinity” of a village behind the town of Marinka on the eastern front line, a strong indication that Kiev’s forces have lost control of the city, more than a week after Moscow claimed to have captured the city.
Open source Cards of the battlefield also show that Russian troops have a foothold throughout Marinka. General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top commander, acknowledged last week that Ukrainian forces had all but retreated to the outskirts, saying Marinka “no longer exists” because Russian forces had reduced it to rubble with relentless shelling.
Several Ukrainian military analysts said Ukrainian forces had set up defensive lines just outside the city and were currently fending off further Russian advances.
“It appears that the Ukrainian forces have left Marinka, but they continue to fight in defensive positions just outside it,” said Oleksandr Musiienko, head of the Kiev-based Center for Military Legal Studies.
Although Marinka is in ruins, it is Russia’s most significant territorial advance since Bakhmut’s fall in May. While his control is unlikely to turn the tide of the war, the loss of the city would be further evidence that Moscow has decisively seized the initiative on the battlefield after Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive failed in most of its objectives .
And Moscow’s success in Marinka would be another blow to the morale of Ukraine’s military, which is now on the defensive and facing manpower and ammunition shortages amid concerns about a possible shortage of Western military aid.
“The Ukrainians are in for a difficult few months,” said Jack Watling, a research fellow at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute who focuses on land warfare.
Russian forces could then turn their sights on the nearby cities of Kurakhove, Vuhledar and Pokrovsk, bringing them one step closer to their goal of conquering the entire Donbas region. Freshly dug trenches now surround towns and villages that months ago were considered beyond the reach of Russian forces.
“Our forces have the opportunity to create a larger operational area,” President Vladimir V. Putin said said in a video of a conversation with Sergei K. Shoigu, Russia’s Defense Minister, on December 25, referring to Marinka’s capture.
The Russian raid on Marinka, a suburb of the city of Donetsk, followed months of grueling fighting as Moscow’s troops crawled through a bomb-ravaged city, a reminder of the fierce battle for Bakhmut, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) to the northeast.
Ukrainian officials typically do not recognize when a town or city has fallen, instead referring to troops operating in the area. The Ukrainian military has declined to comment on Marinka beyond the daily battlefield updates it issues.
The Russian success in Marinka is a symbolic blow to the Ukrainian army, which has failed to recapture a major population center in the past year. Moscow will likely try to bring this to the attention of the Russian public before the presidential elections in March, to signal that the country is winning the war, despite the large number of deaths and injuries. Putin is almost certain to win an election orchestrated in his favor, but he values the vote as a measure of perceived domestic support.
Mr Watling said control of Marinka was not “particularly important” strategically because the city is now flat and not a crucial logistics hub for Ukraine. “But the Russians are very eager to claim success,” he said, “so when they happen, they make a big deal out of it.”
Since the Ukrainian counter-offensive stalled last fall, Russian forces have ruthlessly attacked a series of cities along the eastern front. Russian forces are also advancing on the nearby town of Avdiivka – a hub of Ukrainian defense in the region.
The battle for Marinka illustrated defining features of the Russian invasion that analysts say gave Moscow’s forces a major advantage: bombarding a place into ruins and then sending wave after wave of troops in bloody attacks, even if it means there must be enormous numbers of victims.
Russian forces began using these tactics – storming cities from afar with artillery and bombs before sending in troops and armored vehicles for close combat – after withdrawing from Kiev in the early days of the war and setting their sights on the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
They captured the cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk in the summer of 2022, but after that their offensive largely came to a halt. The capture of Bakhmut in May was the first major territorial gain by Russian forces in months – and the nearly year-long battle for the city was the deadliest and most protracted urban battle in Europe since World War II.
With Bakhmut, Russia came one step closer to achieving its goals in the Donbas region. Then Marinka came.
As Russian forces slowly penetrated Ukrainian positions in Marinka, both sides destroyed apartment buildings and houses, reducing the city to a wasteland. Before the war the city had 9,000 inhabitants. according to a recent census. Today it is largely empty of civilians.
“The situation is exactly the same as in Bakhmut,” General Zaluzhny said at a press conference last week. “Ukrainian forces held Marinka for almost two years while the Russians destroyed it street by street and then house by house.”
Open source maps of the battlefield show that Russian troops already controlled more than half of Marinka in June. They made a final attempt to capture the western edge of the city in mid-December and claimed full control of the area by December 25. Maps of the battlefield from the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, now show that Russia has reached Marinka’s western borders.
But Marinka is now largely a shambles, without much that could serve as a basis for further incursions into Ukrainian territory. And Ukraine has had time to build up fallback positions in an attempt to thwart further Russian advances.
“The main significance lies not in the territory of the city itself, but in the defense lines west of Marinka,” said Serhii Kuzan, the chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center, a research group, “and our armed forces continue to hold them. positions.”
The Institute for the Study of War said last week that “it is highly unlikely that the Russian armed forces will make rapid operational progress from Marinka,” citing a deterioration in their capabilities.
Yet Russia regained the battlefield offensive in 2023. Its brutal operations, including in Bakhmut and Marinka, allowed the country to seize more land than it lost during the year. recent analysis by the Estonian Ministry of Defense noted.
The seizure of Marinka was a way for Moscow to say to the West: “We may not be making rapid progress, but we are making progress, and despite your support, the war is going our way,” said Mr. Watling, the analyst.
“That’s the narrative the Russians are going to push,” he said.
By Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed reporting from Pokrovsk, Ukraine.