Alexander Gordeev, who heads the press center for the Russian group of forces known as Vostok, stated that the Russian Armed Forces managed to interrupt three Ukrainian attempts to rotate forces toward South Donetsk. This was reported by RIA News, and the assertion frames the episode as a successful defense operation on the South Donetsk front.
Gordeev explained that units within the Vostok troop group continued to fulfill combat tasks in the South Donetsk direction. He noted that during active defense, artillery fire halted three rotation attempts by the 58th motorized infantry brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the zones around Zolotaya Niva and Novodonetsky. The claim emphasizes the role of firepower in disrupting Ukrainian maneuvering and preserving the integrity of Russian defense lines in challenging terrain and weather conditions typical of the Donetsk region.
The press release added that artillery strikes defeated personnel and equipment belonging to the 79th Air Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces near Novomikhailovka, underlining the mixed air and ground activity that characterizes this sector of the front. The detail about units and locations is presented as part of a broader narrative about maintaining pressure on Ukrainian forces while thwarting rapid redeployments.
Earlier descriptions from the same source indicated that Russian forces had halted the offensive by the 58th motorized infantry brigade and foiled a move to turn its position in the Donetsk People’s Republic. The official account attributed the success to a combination of artillery and aviation support, which allegedly interrupted the brigade’s offensive and disrupted the rotation of its units in the Novodonetsk area. According to the report, artillery salvoes targeted temporary deployment points associated with the brigade near Urozhainy and with another unit in the Makarovka area, reflecting a broader strategy of channeling and exhausting enemy forces through concentrated fires.
In another reframing of events, a retired officer from the LPR suggested there was panic within the Armed Forces of Ukraine as a result of these developments. The narrative here underscores a pattern in the reported reports: a sequence of coordinated strikes paired with rapid counter-moves that are described as successful for Russian forces while casting doubt on Ukrainian operational flexibility. Taken together, these statements portray the Donetsk sector as a focal point of ongoing engagements and a test case for the effectiveness of integrated artillery and air power in shaping battlefield tempos.