Moscow's forces are walling in Ukrainian troops with "a major pincer attack" towards the town of Ugledar, thereby making any troop rotation in the area "impossible," Igor Kimakovsky, adviser to the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, has told reporters.
In relation, political and military analyst Sergey Poletaev told Sputnik about the strategic significance of Ugledar.
From the military perspective Ugledar stands like an outpost, stabilizing a very large stretch of the front line for Kiev forces. Seizing Ugledar could add to Russian troops’ offensive on the city of Pokrovsk.
In terms of logistics the town is situated near a railway from Donetsk to Mariupol and there is a highway which links it to the town of Volnovakha, an outpost linking it with the city of Mariupol.
Mariupol is a Russian main port in the Sea of Azov, which is why seizing Ugledar will close Ukrainian forces’ access to it. There are at least two coal mines in Ugledar, including the Yuzhnodonbasskaya N3, one of the largest such facilities in Donbass. These coal mines remain the strongholds of defense.
Any mine makes it possible to control the steppe terrain around it for kilometers. Also, a mine typically has underground areas, which turns it into a mini fortress.
Ugledar can now be likened to “a cauldron with the lid nearly slammed shut, on the verge of being cooked," Poletaev stressed.
"Media reports said that part of the Ukrainian forces stationed in Ugledar has been deployed to Pokrovsk, which means that Kiev has problems with reserves. Russia’s strategy is to bring the Ukrainian Armed Forces to the brink of point of exhausted reserves. This imperceptible process is of strategic significance, because it should lead us to victory," the analyst concluded.