Russia accelerated its destruction of Ukraine’s front-line cities in 2024 to a scale previously unseen in the war, using the glide bombs and an expanding network of airstrips, according to an Associated Press analysis last year of drone footage, satellite imagery, Ukrainian documents and Russian photos.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed on Friday that its forces had captured the mining town of Toretsk in their latest breakthrough in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, where Ukrainian defenses are creaking.
Russia's much-larger army has conducted a sustained yearlong campaign along the eastern front, gradually loosening the short-handed and weary Ukrainian forces’ grip on its strongholds as the war approaches its fourth year later this month.
So far this year, Kurakhove was the first significant town to capitulate under Russia’s onslaught, after Russian forces captured Avdiivka and Vuhledar last year.
Russia's claimed fall of Toretsk, if confirmed, would advance its sweep across the Donetsk, which has cost Moscow heavily in troops and armor but has paid dividends for the Kremlin.
