Residents flee as Moscow closes in on Huliaipole, a strategic town, using glide bombs and tactics to obscure Russian ground forces. Kyiv, Ukraine- there is tension in the air in Zaporizhzhia, the southeastern Ukrainian city that straddles both banks of the Dnipro river. In recent weeks, the front line on the left, eastern bank moved closer and is raging about 40 km (25 miles) away from the city that also serves as the administrative capital of the Zaporizhia region. Three-quarters of Zaporizhia have been occupied since 2022, the year Moscow also declared to have officially annexed all of it, along with three more regions- Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson.
Russia has added earth-shattering glide bombs to its arsenal of drones and missiles that keep the city’s 700,000 residents up and afraid at night. The heavy bombs, which are out of reach of Ukrainian air defense, can glide for dozens of kilometers and destroy entire apartment buildings. The front line itself is more audible. “It’s louder, we hear it from across the river,” says Tetiana, a psychologist whose patients feel increasingly alarmed and depressed. Tens of thousands of troops keep advancing, seizing several villages and closing in on the town of Huliaipole in eastern Zaporizhia. The town’s name means “a field to walk around’’ and reflects its centuries-old importance for defending central Ukraine from invaders from the south- mostly nomadic horsemen from the steppes north of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. These days, Huliaipole serves as a crucial logistical hub- and Russian forces are mere kilometers away. “The situation became dire, Russian forces moved forward and shortened the distance to the town to 4km (2.5 miles); they can even strike it with mortars,’’ reporters say. Of Huliaipole’s 20,000 residents, only hundreds remain – mostly the elderly who cannot part with their houses, cattle and pets.
What helps the Russian advance in Zaporizhia is an open landscape with sparse trees and villages, unlike in Donetsk up north, where Ukraine has well-fortified strongholds on hills and plenty of villages and towns to hold on to. Russians also use “couriers,” or wheeled robots topped with smoke bombs that create a dense smokescreen, concealing Russian ground forces from Ukrainian reconnaissance drones. The fall of Huliaipole may be “fast, possibly without much fighting.’’ Moscow’s forces keep implementing their tactic of narrow, but deep, breakthroughs of up to 15km (9.3 miles) into Ukrainian territory wherever they find weak spots in Ukrainian defenses.
