Russia’s Minister of Defense Sergey Shoigu formally announced that the Russian Armed Forces liberated Maryinka, a heavily fortified town in the Donetsk People’s Republic, which for years served as an important stronghold for the Ukrainian troops, on December 25.
Maryinka’s close proximity to the region’s capital of Donetsk allowed Ukrainian forces to shell the bigger municipality with relative impunity, noted military analyst Anatoliy Matviychuk, a retired colonel of the Russian Armed Forces.
“Most importantly, they (Ukrainian forces) turned that town into a fortification,” Matviychuk said. “There were firing positions for long-range artillery and MLRS that shelled Donetsk. Now Maryinka is taken and thus the threat was moved away from Donetsk.”
He further noted that the liberation of Maryinka results in Russian forces taking control of “a hub of railways and highways,” not to mention cutting off the supply lines for the Ukrainian forces in the sector.
The Russian victory in Maryinka also means that Ukrainian forces suffered a huge blow to their morale and lost confidence in their ability to hold their positions, suggested Colonel General Georgy Shpak, ex-commander of the Russian Airborne Forces.
“Already, as I’ve learned, the number of Ukrainian soldiers who want to end up in Russian captivity has drastically increased,” Shpak said, adding that Kiev troops are becoming disaffected with their leaders and their ideals.
Meanwhile, Ret. Col. Rustem Klupov, a military analyst and Russian military intelligence veteran, argued that the liberation of Maryinka was the beginning of a breakthrough in multilayered enemy defense in the sector, which may be followed by further breakthroughs in the Artemovsk and Avdeyevka sectors.
“These three directions – Artemovsk, Maryinka and Avdeyevka – they may lead to a strategic advance towards Pavlograd and Dnepropetrovsk, that’s about 200 kilometers, in order to encircle the enemy attack force that sought to punch through our frontlines in the south,” Klupov said.
According to him, such a move by Russian forces would put the entire Ukrainian southern army group at risk, as Kiev would be forced to either pull these troops back or risk them being cut off.
“The success of this big operation is being determined there, near Avdeyevka and Maryinka,” Klupov claimed.
While Kiev’s “counteroffensive” that started early in June and ended without much fanfare by the year’s end failed to produce any results apart from tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers killed, Russian forces scored a number of victories in 2023 which include the liberation of the cities of Artemovsk, Soledar and Maryinka.