Fighting continues in Toretsk despite Russian claim to have captured city

The Russian Defence Ministry claimed that the mining city of Toretsk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region had fallen to Russian forces on Friday, only for Kyiv to dismiss the claim shortly afterwards and stress that fighting was continuing in the key industrial hub.

Ukrainian open-source intelligence platform DeepState, which maps the conflict in real time, confirmed that the centre of Toretsk was under Russian control on Friday, but reported that fighting was continuing in the city’s northern and western suburbs.

While it’s not unusual for the Russian military to attempt to undermine AFU morale by announcing the fall of cities in Ukraine before their ultimate capture, this tends to be done only when capture is imminent.

The Russian Defence Ministry said that in five months of defending the city, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) had lost over 26,000 servicemen and significant military hardware. Military analysts expect Russian forces to continue their offensive through the Donetsk region to the city of Kostyantynivka once fighting in Toretsk ends.

The slow but steady advance of the Russian military through the Donetsk region in the past year had gained pace in recent months, with the Kremlin determined to occupy as much Ukrainian territory as possible before any potential peace talks begin.

Despite Ukraine’s surprise military incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region in August, the main objective of which was to force Moscow to redeploy some of its forces from Donbas to expel the AFU from Russian territory, the Russian military has continued to prioritise capturing more territory in Donbas.