Russia celebrates recapturing a tiny village but does it really matter?

A town on the frontlines of the fighting between Russia and Ukraine is making headlines around the world after the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed their soldiers captured it after months of fighting in the region. 

Krokhmalne is less a town and more a village with its pre-war population of roughly forty-five people. But the Russian Ministry of Defense thought it was an accomplishment worth bragging about in a recent war report. 

On January 21st, defense ministry officials wrote on the government ministry’s Telegram channel that Krokhmalne had been liberated following a successful attack by units from the country’s western group of troops. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Urutseg - Own Work

The Institute for the Study of War is a Washington-based think tank that has been giving daily updates on what’s happening in the war since it began, and the think tank assessed that the Russian claims were accurate. 

Analysts used geolocation data from images published on January 20th to determine the Russian Armed Forces had captured Krokhmalne, adding that the Russian 47th Guards Tank Division may have been involved. 

However, the message posted by the Russian Ministry of Defense and the confirmation that Krokhmalne had been captured doesn’t explain why it has become a recent focal point of the fighting in the east of Ukraine. 

One explanation could be that Krokhmalne represents a positive political win for Russia as it was a settlement that the Russians originally captured during the initial stage of the invasion in the first months of the war. 

Krokhmalne was captured by the Russian Armed Forces in February 2022 according to information about the village on Wikipedia, and was later liberated by Ukraine during the surprise 2022 Kharkiv counteroffensive.

Russia has been ramping up pressure on the areas recaptured by Ukraine after the 2022 Kharkiv counter-offensive, according to Reuters, but Moscow’s efforts have not amounted to much so far in the eastern regions of Ukraine. 

Ukrainian military officials confirmed the news that Krokhmalne had been taken by the Russians and downplayed the defeat, caulking the loss up to the ever-moving frontlines of a war that has not yet been decided. 

Ground Forces Command Volodymyr Fitio told the Ukrainian online newspaper Strana that the Ukrainian Armed Forces withdrew from the settlement and moved to a more defendable position, calling Krokhmalne's loss “insignificant.”

“Prior to the start of the full-scale invasion, 45 people lived in the village of Krokhmalne, so there were around five houses, and these houses were destroyed by the Russian army,” Fitio told Strana according to a translation from the independent Russian news outlet Meduza.

“That’s why these few hundred meters captured by Russia are insignificant,” Fitio went on to say about the strategic situation in the region. “Our defenders withdrew to better prepared reserve positions, where their lives aren’t at risk.”

Fitio added that he believed the situation on the frontline at Krokhmalne was temporary and that Ukraine would recapture the town. “The front line shifts every day, we simply don’t announce capturing or repelling 100 meters, we don’t need to do that.” 

The Kyiv Independent also picked up the story and reported on Fitio’s remarks, noting that he explained any Russian victory needed to be presented since it helped explain the 7,055 soldiers Moscow has lost in the region since the beginning of January. 

One day before the capture of Krokhmalne, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that a small village in the eastern Donetsk region called Vesele had been captured by the Russian Armed Forces according to Reuters.