Malaya Tokmachka is now the most famous “dead end” at the front. What is happening in the village, for which fighting has been going on for more than a year? And where else is the war stuck?

What is happening in the village, for which fighting has been going on for more than a year? And where else is the war stuck?

Even the most loyal Russian “patriots” laughed at the video of the Z-propagandist, who has been pompously talking about the stubborn battles for the village of Malaya Tokmachka in the Zaporozhye region for a year now. “New Europe” understands why this settlement is so important and how typical the situation with months of futile assaults on unknown villages is for the front.

Malaya Tokmachka is a village in the Zaporozhye region of Ukraine, the population of which, according to 2024 data, was less than 100 people. By 2025, the village was completely destroyed. The Russian army has been trying to capture it for more than a year, but it has never succeeded.

As the Z-channel “Military Informant” wrote back in October 2025, “they have been trying to recapture this unfortunate village near Orekhovo for several years now, but “it has still not been possible to completely dislodge the Ukrainian Armed Forces from the village.” “Brothers in Arms” told the same thing: according to the authors of the channel, “the boys from Zaporizhzhya” told them what was happening near the village, and they “read and were shocked.”

November 17, 2025 Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov congratulated the personnel of the 42nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division on the liberation of Malaya Tokmachka and stated that in this way a serious step had been taken towards victory and achieving the goals of the special military operation.

In the spring of 2026, not only those who closely followed events at the front started talking about Malaya Tokmachka. In mid-April, clips of speeches by “expert” Boris Rozhin, a Crimean pro-war blogger who is associated with the emergence of the propaganda term “polite people,” went viral on social networks. The video shows him commenting on the battles in the village area throughout the year on the “Time Will Tell” and “Big Game” programs on Channel One.

The video, which contains these attempts to “take Tokmachka,” caused an ironic reaction: many on social networks began to come up with a variety of memes ridiculing the attempts to capture this tiny village.

There was even an ironic channel on Telegram called “Has Malaya Tokmachka been taken?” He promises “a daily report of military operations for the settlement of Malaya Tokmachka, Zaporozhye region.”

“Is the fracture close? - this is how the Z-channel “Rybar” began its post about the battles at Malaya Tokmachka. “The enemy is even trying to regain some of the lost positions in the Malaya Tokmachka area in order to prevent the Russian Armed Forces from expanding the zone of control near the populated area,” he writes. In general, Rybar, like other Z-authors, actively covers events around the village in reports or reposts messages from other pro-war bloggers where this settlement is mentioned.

The author of the telegram channel “Reporter Filatov” admitted that he was “very funny and sad” from the video clipping. And the author of Alex Parker Returns even believes that the parade on May 9 “at a time when even Malaya Tokmachka has not been taken in more than four years and oil refineries are burning all around” is a symbol of “insignificance” and “spitting on the graves of grandfathers who fought.”

Memes have also attracted attention in Ukraine: local media note that Russian propaganda is once again trying to “lift the mood” of viewers by talking about events that do not happen in reality:

Malaya Tokmachka is regularly “taken,” “returned,” or “advanced” there, but all this exists only in news reports and reports, and not on the ground.

“No, but what did you want? Malaya Tokmachka is the largest agglomeration in Europe. <...> In general, a key point in Putin’s plan. It was for the sake of control over this giant city that the entire North Military District was started!” — Ukrainian Mikhail Golinsky commented on social networks.

“The fighting directly for Malaya Tokmachka began around May 2025,” Alexander Kovalenko, military-political observer of the Information Resistance group, tells New Europe. — Russian troops captured Novopokrovka and began to break through to the outskirts of Malaya Tokmachka. During the year, only minor tactical advances took place in this direction. Malaya Tokmachka has important logistical significance. The village is located on highway 0815 leading to Orekhov. You can get to this city from the direction of the concentration of Russian troops only through Malaya Tokmachka.

In 2023, after a counter-offensive by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Russians were forced to withdraw from many areas of the Zaporozhye region. Since then, the Russian Armed Forces have been trying to gnaw back the lost territories.

“Before the war, more than three thousand people lived in Malaya Tokmachka,” military expert, reserve colonel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Roman Svitan tells Novaya-Europe. — This settlement is located along the highway. Fighting in this direction has been going on since 2024. Malaya Tokmachka covers Orekhov from the southeast. The distance between settlements does not exceed five kilometers. The Russians set up a large logistics hub in the village of Pologi and launched an attack from there on Gulyai-Polye and Orekhov. The road to Orekhov passes through Malaya Tokmachka, where the Ukrainian Armed Forces have built a serious defense perimeter. On the one hand, the Ukrainian fortified area rests on the Konka River, and on the other, on the dominant heights, also occupied by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The Russians are unable to get further than Malaya Tokmachka. Either they enter the village and report on their success, then they are kicked out of there again.

According to Svitan, fighting in Malaya Tokmachka is ongoing. The Russians are trying to infiltrate the defenses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in small groups and gain a foothold in the ruins. They tried to somehow enter on a convoy of heavy equipment, but it was all burned down by Ukrainian drones. The Russian Armed Forces bombed the village with KABs and practically razed it to the face of the earth, turning it into a branch of hell on earth.

“In January 2026, in Malaya Tokmachka, the Russians managed to occupy control zones on the eastern outskirts,” adds Kovalenko. “Over the year, the Russian Armed Forces made numerous attempts to break through to the railway station in this village. The Russian army advanced along Mira Street, but was unable to conquer significant territory. The Russian Armed Forces have still not been able to gain a foothold. Today the village is virtually destroyed. Almost all the ruins remaining from it are under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In recent months, two or three assault groups have been destroyed in the village every day, but the operational situation has not changed.

There are many settlements on the line of combat contact, battles for which have been going on for many years.

For example, the parties have been fighting for Volchansk in the Kharkov region since May 2024. Since then, the Russian Armed Forces have been unable to take the city. In the same direction there is the village of Liptsy. The Russians have been storming it since May 10, 2024. Not far from Malaya Tokmachka in the direction of Gulyai-Polye there is the village of Mirnoye. Now the Russians are trying to break through in this direction to highway 0814. Fighting for Peace has been going on since 2023. Also, long-term clashes took place outside the village of Rabotino in the Orekhovsk direction and in the Stepnogorsk region. For more than a year, fighting has been going on for Malye Shcherbaki and Lukyanovskoye. Both villages have long been completely destroyed.

In addition, Russian troops were bogged down for a long time in Rodinskoye in the Pokrovsk-Mirnograd direction. Not far from there, the villages of Kotlino and Udachnoe resisted the Russians for a long time. The defense of the village of Stupochki near Chasovoy Yar held out for more than a year and a half.

In the Kupyansk direction, the Russian 1st Tank Army could not take Kolesnikovka on the left bank of the Oskol River. There are quite a lot of small settlements on the map that stop the advance of the Russian Armed Forces for months or years.

“On the front line, the length of which today exceeds 1,200 kilometers, there are many settlements, battles for which have been going on for more than one year,” notes Svitan. — In addition to Chasov Yar, these are Volchansk, Kupyansk and the Pokrovsko-Mirnograd agglomeration. In addition, there are dozens of villages on the LBS that have become strongholds of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ defense.

“Such a long-term confrontation in a relatively small settlement may be due to its relief and landscape features,” explains Kovalenko. — The Ukrainian Armed Forces effectively use both geographical advantages and established defense lines. The southern front in the Zaporozhye region represents similar well-fortified Ukrainian positions.