Russia is preparing to launch fresh assaults on embattled parts of the front line snaking through Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region that are vital for Kyiv's logistics operations in the east, according to a Ukrainian military spokesperson for forces in the south of the war-torn country.
Russia is readying its forces for "new assault operations" near the Zaporizhzhia city of Orikhiv and the embattled village of Robotyne, Vladyslav Voloshyn, a spokesperson for Ukrainian forces operating in Zaporizhzhia, told Ukrainian news.
"The enemy is deploying personnel there and is likely to intensify new assaults in a few days," he said in remarks reported by domestic media.
Although Moscow has focused much of its efforts on grinding but steady gains in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, it has kept up pressure on Ukrainian defenses further south in neighboring Zaporizhzhia. Both Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia—along with Luhansk and Kherson—have been annexed by Russia, although it does not exert full control over any of the four mainland regions, also known as oblasts.
Russia has simultaneously attacked Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region from May 2024, and contended with Kyiv's surprise offensive into Kursk from early August.
Robotyne, a small but significant Zaporizhzhia village close to Orikhiv and the Russian-held hub of Tokmak, has long been on the front lines during the more than two and a half years of full-scale war. It was one of the few villages reclaimed by Kyiv during its 2023 counteroffensive.
Moscow said in May this year that it had retaken Robotyne. Popular Ukrainian war-tracking blog, Deep State, put much of Robotyne under Russian control as of Sunday.
"If they achieve a breakthrough, Russia will be able to fire at logistical routes connecting Zaporizhzhia to the east of Ukraine," Voloshyn said. "Russia will try to succeed at any cost to cut off our logistics."
Dmytro Pelikh, a spokesperson for Ukraine's 118th Separate Mechanized Brigade fighting in the south, told the U.S.-backed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty outlet earlier this month that Russia was moving armored vehicles toward the front lines in Zaporizhzhia.
Voloshyn said in late September that Russia was "amassing personnel" in the southeast.
Ukraine's military reported in an early-morning update on Sunday that Russia had "unsuccessfully" attacked Novodanylivka, a settlement southeast of Orikhiv and to the west of Mala Tokmachka.
Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement that its forces had attacked several Ukrainian brigades operating around Mala Tokmachka, as well as east of Orikhiv.
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