Russian forces have captured the city’s District Administration Building. Legally speaking Artyomovsk is now a subject of the Donetsk People’s Republic.
I saw it, Prigozhin also made a video from it. How much is left tho? A few days maybe? Weeks?
That depends entirely on how much Ukraine is still willing to throw into this already lost battle. The whole point is to keep drawing in as many Ukrainian forces as possible into what has for months been a fire bag surrounded on three sides and with very precarious supply routes essentially under Russian fire control. The more resources and manpower Ukraine pours in to try and hold on to the remaining 30% of the city, the less they have for counter-offensives elsewhere.
Assuming that Russia keeps up the current level of pressure and Ukraine does not increase their level of commitment to the defense then progress will only accelerate as the remaining defenders are squeezed into a smaller and smaller area. I think days is too optimistic if nothing changes, weeks is more realistic.
But as i said it depends on how Ukraine acts going forward. If they double down on holding onto everything they can, then it will take longer and bleed away more of the reserves that they have prepared for the counter-offensives. If they decide to pull out then we could see very sudden and big gains for Russia, which is also dangerous for Ukraine since their defensive lines further back are less solid and a lot of Russian resources will be freed up to push even further. It’s a lose-lose proposition for Kiev.
The best they can hope for is a spectacularly successful counter-offensive, either to relieve the city by pushing back the Russian pincers around it, or at an entirely different part of the front line that will draw away resources from the fight for the city and freeze Russian progress. In chess we would call this Zugzwang, and it’s not a pretty position to be in. It forces Ukraine to throw everything on a gamble. And even worse is the fact that even if they succeed with that gamble the price they will have paid for what will mostly be a PR victory will be enormous.
Problem is if they do nothing they will slowly start to lose Western support, and that is already looking quite shaky as the West’s own stockpiles are by now severely depleted and the worsening economic situation makes it more and more unpopular to keep paying to keep the Ukrainian state on economic life support.
