{"id":578168,"date":"2025-11-18T11:32:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T11:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/578168\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T11:32:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T11:32:22","slug":"dire-situation-russia-gains-ground-in-ukraines-zaporizhia-region-russia-ukraine-war-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/578168\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Dire situation\u2019: Russia gains ground in Ukraine\u2019s Zaporizhia region | Russia-Ukraine war News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kyiv, Ukraine \u2013<\/strong> There is tension in the air in Zaporizhzhia<\/a>, the southeastern Ukrainian city that straddles both banks of the Dnipro River.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, the front line on the left, eastern bank, moved closer and is raging about 40km (25 miles) away from the city that also serves as the administrative capital of the Zaporizhia region.<\/p>\n

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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 \u2013 Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson.<\/p>\n

Russia has added earth-shattering glide bombs to its arsenal of drones and missiles that keep the city\u2019s 700,000 residents up and afraid at night.<\/p>\n

The heavy bombs, which are out of reach of Ukrainian air defence, can glide for dozens of kilometres and destroy entire apartment buildings.<\/p>\n

\"AA woman pulls a cart while walking down an empty street with dogs in the front-line town of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhia region, Ukraine, on November 13, 2025 [Reuters]<\/p>\n

The front line itself is more audible.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s louder, we hear it from across the river,\u201d Tetiana, a psychologist whose patients feel increasingly alarmed and depressed, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

She withheld her last name for security reasons.<\/p>\n

Even though life in the city seems to go on \u2013 swimming pools and medical centres are open, for instance \u2013 Tetiana feels that she and her family may have to pack up and flee soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a feeling that maybe at some point we\u2019ll have to leave,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s a readiness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Military analysts are also far from optimistic.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Russia] deployed resources more than a month ago to activate their advance on the western flank,\u201d Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of Ukraine\u2019s general staff of armed forces, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of troops keep advancing, seizing several villages and closing in on the town of Huliaipole in eastern Zaporizhia.<\/p>\n

The town\u2019s name means \u201ca field to walk around\u201d and reflects its centuries-old importance for defending central Ukraine from invaders from the south \u2013 mostly nomadic horsemen from the steppes north of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.<\/p>\n

These days, Huliaipole serves as a crucial logistical hub \u2013 and Russian forces are mere kilometres away.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d Romanenko said.<\/p>\n

Of Huliaipole\u2019s 20,000 residents, only hundreds remain \u2013 mostly the elderly who cannot part with their houses, cattle and pets.<\/p>\n

\"AA building damaged by Russian military strikes and anti-drone nets installed over a street in the front-line town of Orikhiv in Zaporizhia on November 13, 2025 [Reuters]<\/p>\n

What helps the Russian advance in Zaporizhia is an open landscape with sparse trees and villages \u2013 unlike in Donetsk up north, where Ukraine has well-fortified strongholds on hills and plenty of villages and towns to hold on to, he said.<\/p>\n

Russians also use \u201ccouriers\u201d, or wheeled robots topped with smoke bombs that create a dense smokescreen \u2013 concealing Russian ground forces from Ukrainian reconnaissance drones, he said.<\/p>\n

The fall of Huliaipole may be \u201cfast, possibly without much fighting\u201d, according to Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany\u2019s Bremen University.<\/p>\n

The fall \u201cwill be a rather strong public-relations blow for Ukrainian forces\u201d, he told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Moscow\u2019s 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 defences, he said.<\/p>\n

If the breakthroughs are not eliminated within days \u2013 something that often requires only one regiment of Ukrainian storm troopers and auxiliary drone operators \u2013 the front line can be maintained, Mitrokhin believes.<\/p>\n

If not, he said, within a week or two, each breakthrough becomes a front-line curve as Russia starts to deploy drones, mortars and tanks, build trenches, amass manpower and weaponry.<\/p>\n

The problem is not about the lack of Ukrainian reserves but about the slow decision-making by Ukraine\u2019s leaders, top brass and the entire military apparatus, he said.<\/p>\n

After patching up yet another breakthrough in the north or the east, Ukrainian commanders keep troops on the ground for weeks fighting for hamlets where Russian forces have firmly entrenched.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainians keep losing manpower and resources, while Russians are breaking through elsewhere, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m afraid, with Huliaipole, things will be the same,\u201d Mitrokhin said.<\/p>\n

By mid-December, Huliaipole may be encircled by two-thirds, and then Ukrainian forces will start an operation to save it \u201cwith convulsions to save the garrison\u201d, Mitrokhin predicted.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd yet, what was needed in the beginning was just a deployment of a regiment to a necessary place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Say goodbye\u2019 to Huliaipole<\/p>\n

Some Ukrainian observers agree with him, accusing top Ukrainian commander Oleksandr Syrskii of sluggishness and incompetence.<\/p>\n

Huliaipole is \u201cyet another victim [of] the chaos of military management and President [Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s] desire to keep Syrskii,\u201d lawmaker Mariana Bezuhla wrote on Facebook on Friday. \u201cSay goodbye to the town \u2026 It\u2019s being razed to the ground, bypassed from the sides, but soon the fighting will be in Huliaipole itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn recent weeks, the enemy has significantly sped up its advance and is not going to slow down,\u201d military analyst Konstantin Mashovets wrote on Telegram on Friday.<\/p>\n

Another observer warned of a much larger disaster.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re moving towards a catastrophe of strategic scale that could lead to the loss of our statehood,\u201d Serhiy Sternenko, a popular nationalist blogger, wrote on Telegram on Sunday.<\/p>\n

But according to DeepState, a group of Ukrainian military analysts who verify Moscow\u2019s gains and Kyiv\u2019s losses by geolocating photos and videos, things are not that bad.<\/p>\n

Russia currently controls some 19 percent of Ukraine\u2019s territory, a mere percentage point up from the fall of 2022.<\/p>\n

The point cost Moscow tens of thousands of servicemen, according to Western intelligence, amid economic<\/a> pressure caused by Western sanctions and Ukraine\u2019s strikes on oil refineries and military infrastructure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kyiv, Ukraine \u2013 There is tension in the air in Zaporizhzhia, the southeastern Ukrainian city that straddles both…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[299,12,332,7661,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-578168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-europe","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-russia","11":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","12":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115570485165592507","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}