Ukraine to Pull Out of Vuhledar        10/02 06:14

   

   KYIV, Ukraine (AP) -- Ukrainian forces are withdrawing from the front-line 
town of Vuhledar, perched atop a tactically significant hill in eastern 
Ukraine, after more than two years of grinding battle, military officials said 
Wednesday.

   Vuhledar, a town Ukrainian forces fought tooth and nail to keep, is the 
latest urban settlement to fall to the Russians as the war stretches deep into 
its third year and the Ukrainian army is gradually being pushed backward in the 
eastern Donetsk province.

   It follows a vicious summer campaign along the eastern front that saw Kyiv 
cede several thousand square kilometers (square miles) of territory as the 
Russian army hacks its way westward, obliterating towns and villages with 
missiles, glide bombs, artillery and drones.

   Ukraine's Khortytsia ground forces formation, which commands eastern regions 
including Donetsk, said in a statement posted on Telegram it was withdrawing 
troops from Vuhledar to "protect military personnel and equipment."

   "In an attempt to take control of the city at any cost, (Russian) reserves 
were directed to carry out flanking attacks, which exhausted the defense of the 
units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. As a result of the enemy's actions, there 
arose a threat of encircling the city," the statement said.

   The tactical significance of the town, situated at the confluence of two 
major roads, is two-fold. Dominant heights and proximity to railway lines offer 
Moscow greater protection for their own logistics routes, and a better vantage 
point for attacks against Ukrainian forces and supply lines feeding the south.

   Its capture is another notch in Moscow's belt, bringing it closer to the key 
logistics hub of Pokrovsk.