Moscow continues to steadily advance through Ukraine-controlled territory as the United States turns its attention towards the Middle East, notes independent journalist Sarah Bils.
The US Navy veteran and co-founder of DD Geopolitics joined
Sputnik’s The Backstory program this week as reports emerged that
Russia had liberated the coal mining town of Ugledar in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR). Russian officials confirmed the development Thursday after the Ukrainian military
claimed it was withdrawing from the city after a week of heavy fighting.
Located at an elevation of 614 feet, Ugledar is a strategic link between southern and eastern fronts in the conflict and a crucial supply hub. Russia’s control of the settlement marks a major step towards the complete liberation of the DPR, also allowing it to protect a nearby rail line running from Crimea to the Donbass region. Ukraine had previously launched attacks on Russian supply lines from the city, which claimed a population of about 14,000 in 2022.
“The situation is looking like it's kind of panning out to be a lot like at Avdeyevka where the front collapses, the city falls, and then there's no reserves behind it and people are just running,” she continued. “The retreat is actually quite ugly right now.”
The
liberation of Avdeyevka earlier this year was seen as one of Russia’s most significant gain in months of fighting. In another sign of a growing breakdown in discipline among Kiev’s troops,
Ukrainian soldiers spontaneously fled their positions as the Russian armed forces closed in on the city. Kiev attempted to save face by giving an order to retreat two days later, but by then the plummeting morale of its military had become apparent.
Russia is now advancing at its fastest rate in over two years, according to observers – the result of Moscow’s commitment to its war of attrition and Ukrainian losses recently suffered during its ill-fated operation in the Kursk region. Ukraine’s attack on Russian territory briefly made headlines in Western media but forced the Kiev regime to expend some of its best-trained troops and most advanced weaponry.
“Russia's moving like a steamroller through the west and those troops that went to the north [in the Kursk region] are not coming back, they're dead,” the analyst added. “So it's getting worse.”
“I think that people need to understand that Ukraine is now just one front of this now very large-scale war, which includes the Levant and parts of Africa,” Bils warned, “I would also include Africa at this point because Ukraine is there and so is Russia… The priorities now have to be shifted because now we're looking at a much wider scale war for America.”
The ongoing conflict threatens to strain the United States to the limit, observers warn, with the US now at risk of being forced to support its ally Israel on multiple fronts while it continues to ship arms to Ukraine and Taiwan.
“In Andrei Martyanov's new book he actually talks about why the ego – the inflated ego and the delusions of grandeur of the United States – will actually ultimately be its downfall,” Bils claimed. “We overestimate our capabilities and who we can feasibly take on.”