The video spread like wildfire through Ukrainian Telegram channels.
Two soldiers from the army's 47th Mechanized Brigade took out a blue and yellow flag from their uniform and placed it over the window of a ruined building in the town of Robotine, 80 kilometers south of Zaporizhzhia.
It was August 22, 2023 and after three months of continued effort, optimism finally emerged.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive was beginning to bear fruit, breaking for the first time the enormous front of trenches, minefields and anti-tank defenses designed by Russia along 800 kilometers to defend the occupied territory.
Six months later, it is the Ukrainian forces that are on the defensive in this small village that had 500 inhabitants before the February 2022 invasion. At least 16 Russian units besiege it from the east and west, attacking it from south to try to surround it.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is in the midst of an ammunition reserve crisis and is having great difficulty maintaining its positions.
The liberation of Robotine culminated Kiev's recovery of an area of almost 73 square kilometers, a small bite to the south from the towns of Orijiv and Mala Tomachka that cost months and hundreds of deaths to take.
But its value was very symbolic.
The soldiers of the 47th brigade were trained abroad and had the new armored vehicles provided by NATO, which indicated that the formula put in place by kyiv and its allies to once again gain ground from the Russians could work.
The hope it generated was such that even the then commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valeri Zaluzhni, celebrated it on social networks with a video from a drone view that zoomed in directly
on
the national flag that the soldiers had placed. soldiers from several tens of meters high.
The area won so painfully from the Russians – between 30% and 40% of the Ukrainian soldiers who fought in the area were wounded or killed – also had important strategic value.
Its control opened the door to a hypothetical advance towards Tokmak, 27 kilometers to the south, and Melitopol, another 60 kilometers below and with access to the Sea of Azov, creating a corridor that would interrupt the Russian supply chain from the east and south of the Ukraine invaded towards Kherson, to the west, and the Crimean peninsula, illegally occupied since 2014. The Ukrainian advance on these populations, however, never occurred.
Six months after the liberation of this spit of land, the balance of forces between the two contenders has changed.
At least 16 Russian army units made up of paratroopers, motorized regiments and assault guards surround it from the east, south and west.
Since Saturday, the attacks have been constant and the Russians have managed to timidly advance west and south of Robotine while launching operations from the eastern part of the liberated territory.
The Ukrainian General Staff assures that, so far, it has managed to repel the incursions.
According to its latest report this Thursday morning, in the last 24 hours there were eight more attempts to gain ground.
Several international analysts consulted by EL PAÍS agree that the lack of supplies from the United States and the European Union has pushed Ukrainian forces to save ammunition.
They also point out the exhaustion and casualties caused by the failed counteroffensive last summer, when it was kyiv's troops that bore the brunt of the fighting with the obligation to expose their men more.
Moscow has adapted to this new situation of weakness by increasing its potential for attrition but without making great progress.
Avdiivka and Robotine are two of the five areas in which it carries out this strategy, which also continues in Kremina (Lugansk), and in Bakhmut and Marinka, in Donetsk province.
Despite the large concentration of invading troops around Robotine, the Russian attacks always follow the same pattern.
Kremlin soldiers try to move in small groups of infantry supported by fast all-terrain vehicles.
This tactic allowed them last Wednesday to seize small strips of territory controlled by Ukraine to the west and east of the village, according to a report by the Washington-based
think tank
Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
The attacks by these small units are supported by artillery fire and air strikes, not only in the Robotine area, but also in neighboring towns such as Mala Tomachka, according to the Ukrainian military leadership.
Battlefield state maps drawn from open sources confirm small Russian advances.
war crimes
Kremlin troops have also been accused of committing war crimes during the fighting in the vicinity of that town reduced to ruins.
An unverified video broadcast on social networks showed last Monday how a group of Russian soldiers supposedly gunned down three Ukrainian troops who had surrendered and were unarmed as soon as they left their trench.
The Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office announced on Tuesday that it has opened an investigation “for violation of the laws and customs of war, as well as premeditated murder.”
The siege of Robotine occurs after, last Saturday, kyiv announced its withdrawal from Avdiivka, on the front of the Donetsk province, and adjacent to the city of the same name, illegally annexed by Russia.
The new commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksander Sirski, justified this decision “to avoid being besieged” and preserve the lives of soldiers.
The general in charge of that sector of the front assured that the Russian fire was 10 times greater than the Ukrainian one.
This Thursday, the Kremlin maintained that it has made new progress on the eastern front and that its men have taken the small village of Pobieda, a small residential town 30 kilometers west of Donetsk.
The spokesperson for the US Department of Defense, Sabrina Singh, referred last Tuesday to the Ukrainian departure from Avdiivka and directly related it to the stoppage of military supplies caused by the Republican majority in that country's House of Representatives.
“[Avdiivka] was a strategic withdrawal with the objective of conserving its artillery and ammunition,” the spokesperson said.
“If we don't provide them with these critical aid packages, Ukraine is going to have to decide which cities and towns it can keep under its control with what it has,” Singh added.
It remains to be seen whether or not Robotine will be among the populations worth preserving.
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