Ukraine loses Robotyne and dozens of settlements in 2024

Ukraine loses Robotyne and dozens of settlements in 2024

Is the Ukrainian front collapsing? The question resurfaces every few weeks, often prematurely answered. The territorial count leaves little room for interpretation: 15 towns, 5 villages, and one city have fallen under Russian control throughout 2024, with Avdiivka being the most significant loss. Robotyne, a village Ukraine hailed as the main success of its counteroffensive, has now been recaptured by Russia. Meanwhile, the head of the Ukrainian army acknowledges a tactical withdrawal in several sectors. Washington maintains a weapons package valued at $60 billion, whose impact on the ground remains disputed.

Which settlements did Russia capture in 2024?

The inventory is extensive and unflattering to the official narrative. Captured towns include Vesele, Krokhmalne, Tabaivka, Pobeda, Sjeverne, Stepove, Tonenke, Berdychi, Nevel's'ke, Myrne, Pervomaiske, Bohdanivka, Novoakhmutivka, Leche, and Soloviove. Villages lost include Lastochkino, Orlivka, Ivanivske, Novomikhailovka, and Ocheretyne. The only major city captured was Avdiivka. To this balance, Robotyne is added, where the advance was marked by a Russian regimental flag raised in the northern outskirts as Ukrainian units retreated.

To understand the scale, one must recall the cost. The capture of Robotyne during the Ukrainian counteroffensive was sold as a first-rate success; it is now counted, according to circulating reports, with 160,000 casualties and an undetermined number of Western-made tanks destroyed. A heavy sacrifice to return to the starting point.

Desertion figures no one confirms

The most uncomfortable number is not on any map. Tracking channels estimate more than 100,000 deserters in the Ukrainian army, a figure higher than what the new mobilization law aims to recruit in practice. Other estimates suggest a trickle of between 4,000 and 15,000 men per month, with some sources raising the total to 250,000. None come from official Ukrainian sources, which is the problem: these are cited, debated, but never published figures.

Reports about recruitment operations are difficult to verify yet widely repeated: that those declared missing remain registered in the army—preventing their remobilization—that the approved law is softer than actual street practices, and that recruitment teams operate with methods far removed from written procedures. It is even claimed there is space to house tens of thousands of prisoners: 45,000 inmates and nearly 70,000 available places. The bottleneck would not be capacity, but finding those who no longer want to be there.

Why aren't $60 billion enough?

Because money buys material, not infantry. This is the core argument that reappears whenever the US announces aid tranches: the $60 billion weapons package boosts industry budgets but does not solve who holds the rifle in a trench. The counterargument has merit: if the goal is to wear down a strategic rival, the bill is cheap compared to doing it oneself.

The controversy also drags along the cycle of miracle weapons. ATACMS are the latest addition to a list that has already included tanks, precision artillery, and air defense systems, successively presented as the element that would change the war. None have done so alone. There is a third line of criticism, less strategic and more uncomfortable: that this money goes to armament while humanitarian needs remain unmet.

Demographic arithmetic

Here the debate becomes awkward. According to circulating calculations, Russia has 50 million men aged 18 to 60 at home; Ukraine has about 2 million in that bracket, many of whom have left the country. On this differential rests the most repeated argument: time favors Moscow and works against Kyiv, regardless of how much foreign material arrives.

The conclusion some draw—that if necessary, total war would be declared and everyone would go to the front—is precisely the scenario others consider to be avoided. Declaring a state of war is not a symbolic gesture: signing the decree is one thing; having the war come looking for you is quite another.

While lists of lost settlements grow and casualty balances cross without matching, the only undisputed figure is the one that doesn't exist: how many of those 100,000 men will pick up a rifle again. For now, the count of lost towns grows on its own, without need for propaganda.