Russian forces have abandoned Robotyne, a key village on Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia front, a Kremlin-installed official announced on state TV.
Yevgeny Balitsky, the head of the Moscow-installed administration in the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region, said during a broadcast of Russian state TV show Solovyov Live that the Russian army pulled out of the area for tactical reasons.
Ukraine's counteroffensive to reclaim its territory is now in its fourth month, with particularly heavy clashes taking place along the front lines in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions. Geolocated footage dated September 5 shows Kyiv's forces have advanced south of Robotyne and along Russian defensive lines in the area.
"The Russian army abandoned—tactically abandoned—this settlement because staying on a bare surface when there is no way to completely dig in... doesn't generally make sense. Therefore the Russian army retreated to the hills," Russian news outlet RBC quoted Balitsky as saying.
Newsweek has contacted Russia's Defense Ministry via email for comment.
On August 29, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar announced that Kyiv's forces had recaptured Robotyne and were attempting to advance further.
"Robotyne has been liberated," she said during a national broadcast at the time, Ukrainska Pravda reported.
"In the south, we are carrying out an offensive. This is our main offensive front. In Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts, the enemy is on the defensive," Maliar added. "Our troops are moving southeast of Robotyne and south of Mala Tokmachka."
The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank, said on Tuesday that geolocated footage posted on September 5 shows Russian forces striking Ukrainian positions northwest and west of Robotyne, indicating that Ukrainian forces have advanced into an area near the settlement that Russian forces previously claimed to control.
"Additional geolocated footage posted on September 5 shows that Ukrainian forces have also advanced south of Robotyne and northwest of Verbove (about 10km east of Robotyne)," the think tank said. "Geolocated evidence of Ukrainian forces northwest of Verbove suggests that Ukrainian forces are advancing along the line of Russian fortifications that runs into the settlement."
Open-source intelligence (OSINT) analysts also reported on Tuesday that Kyiv's forces have expanded a breach in the "Surovikin Line"—Russia's main defensive line near Robotyne.
GeoConfirmed, an OSINT account on X, formerly Twitter, said Monday that Kyiv's forces have likely reached the "Surovikin Line" trench system near the village of Verbove, near Robotyne.
The so-called "Surovikin Line" refers to defensive lines in Ukraine constructed under the command of General Sergei Surovikin, the former commander of Russia's military operations in Ukraine.
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About the writer
Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel ... Read more
