On the eastern front of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a military engagement began in March 2022 between Russian and Ukrainian forces took place for control over the town of Izium, an important transportation node.[4] The Russian military wanted to capture Izium so its forces in Kharkiv Oblast could link up with their troops in the Donbas region.[10]
Street of Izium after shelling and bombardments, 6MarchCity council after the battleRemains of a residential building where 54 people were killed by a Russian airstrike in MarchPolovtsian stone sculptures of 9-13 centuries on Mount Kremenets in Izium after the battle. The statue in the right was completely destroyed; nearby monument to WWII heroes (in the background) is partially destroyed.
Russian attacks on Izium started from 28 February 2022, with "constant" rocket strikes by the Russian military beginning on 3 March. Eight civilians were killed on 3 March, with the town's central hospital reportedly sustaining significant damage.[12] The following day, Russian forces advanced towards Izium and reached its northern outskirts.[citation needed] By 6 March, the Russian military was in control of Izium's railway station[uk] and two of the city's neighborhoods, Honcharivka and Pisky. All of the city's road bridges over the Siverskyi Donets river had already been destroyed.[13]
In the evening of 7 March, Russian online outlets reported that Izium had been taken by Russian forces, a claim that was not officially confirmed.[4] The next day, Ukrainian forces claimed to have repelled a Russian attack on Izium, forcing Russian troops to retreat.[14]
On 9 March, Russian forces were said to be to slowly advancing towards Izium.[15] By 9 March, Russian Telegram channels had reported that Russian forces had broken through the Ukrainian defense in Izium, reaching the town's southern outskirts, and that Ukrainian forces had destroyed the town's bridges over the Siverskyi Donets in response.[16] Between 9 and 10 March, 2,250 civilians were evacuated from Izium.[12]
On 11 March, fierce fighting took place in Izium, with Russian forces assaulting the southern part of the town, according to a local official.[17]
On 12 March, Russian troops captured "portions" of the northern part of Izium.[18] The following day, the Ukrainian military claimed that Russian forces had launched an unsuccessful attack in the town.[19]
On 14 March, Ukrainian officials claimed that Ukrainian forces went on the counteroffensive near Izium, forcing the Russian military to retreat from the villages of Topolske[uk], Shpakivka[uk], and Donetske. According to pro-Russian Telegram channels, fighting continued in the southern part of Izium, and Russian forces had managed to cross the Siverskyi Donets using pontoon bridges.[20]
According to Austrian military expert Tom Cooper, Ukrainian forces retook the southern side of Izium between 15-16 March.[21]
On 17 March, a local official said that Russian forces had crossed the Siverskyi Donets river near the highway to Barvinkove, but had been "completely destroyed" near the Izium fish farm. Meanwhile, pro-Russian Telegram channels reportedly claimed that Russian forces had entered the village of Kamyanka[uk], south of Izium, thus cutting off the Ukrainian garrison in Izium from food and supplies.[22] On the same day, the Ukrainian military claimed to have stopped a Russian column as it was moving in the direction of Kamyanka. It was said that the column consisted of military vehicles belonging to the 26th Tank Regiment's battalion tactical group, as well as the 437th Training Regiment.[23][24] Cooper claimed that Russia's 144th Motor Rifle Division was part of an unsuccessful attempt to recapture the southern part of Izium on 17 March.[21]
A US DoD official reportedly stated on 17 March that Izium had been captured by Russian forces;[25] according to the Institute for the Study of War, "either the statement itself or media reporting was incorrect".[26]
Fighting continued on 18 March. The Ukrainian military reported that Russian forces were deploying additional units and supplies to Izium.[26]
Between 19 and 20 March, a new Russian attempt to capture the center of Izium was repelled.[27] During the fighting, Russian engineering troops attempted to make a pontoon bridge over the Donets river,[28] so to bypass two vehicle bridges that were partially destroyed by Ukrainian forces in an attempt to halt the Russian advance.[10] However, the engineering troops were ambushed and 19 Russian soldiers were killed and 46 wounded. Among the dead was the commander of the engineering unit, Colonel Nikolay Ovcharenko, variously described in sources as a member of the 1st Guards Tank Army[7] or the 45th Engineer Regiment.[6] Eventually, Russian forces managed to erect two pontoon bridges and Russian tanks crossed the river to encircle the Ukrainian-held part of Izium.[10] During this time, on 22 March, Ukrainian forces made an attempted counterattack to regain control of the town.[29]
On 24 March, the Russian military announced that it had taken full control of Izium,[30][31] which was denied by Ukraine which stated that fighting was still ongoing.[32][33] According to a local official, Russian forces were holding the northern part of the town, while Ukrainian soldiers were in the south, with the Donets river separating them. He also confirmed that Izium was blockaded and that the city had been "completely destroyed" by this point.[34]
On 25 March, it was reported by a US DoD official and others that Russian forces broke through Ukrainian lines to the south of Izium,[35] reportedly advancing 10 kilometers.[36] However, the ISW cited the Ukrainian military that the Russian troops were repelled at the village of Kamyanka, just south of Izium. The ISW further stated that Russian forces were going to continue with their attempts to encircle the town, after failing to capture it in a direct assault.[37]
By 27 March, the Russian military captured Kamyanka, Topolske, and Sukha Kamyanka[uk], all south of Izium, but Ukrainian forces claimed that they managed to subsequently recapture all three villages.[38] They also claimed to have shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-34 fighter aircraft near Izium.[39] Two days later, it was confirmed Kamyanka was under Russian control, with Russian forces fortifying their positions around it, while the fighting moved south of Izium, along the road to Sloviansk.[40]
On 1 April, the Ukrainian military confirmed Izium was under Russian control.[1][2][3] The following day, in an interview for Ukrinform, Izium's Deputy Mayor Volodymyr Matsokin claimed that 80% of the city's residential buildings had been destroyed and that there was no power, heating, or water in the city.[13]
On 3 April 2022, the Ukrainian government stated that two Russian soldiers were killed and 28 others hospitalized after Ukrainian civilians handed out poisoned cakes to Russian soldiers of the Russian 3rd Motor Rifle Division in Izium.[41][42]
On 4 April, The Guardian reported, based on eyewitness reports by residents and military officials, that intense fighting continued close to Izium.[43]
On 10 April, several US defense officials stated that Russian forces were massing in Izium in preparation for an offensive campaign between Izium and Dnipro.[44] Russian forces had been reportedly redeploying forces from the Kyiv axis and the Sumy axis to Izium from 5 April.[45]
On 11 April, Russian forces launched an attack against Dovhenke and Dmytrivka[uk], which was repelled by Ukrainian forces.[46]
On 18 April, Ukraine claimed the recapture of a "number of settlements" in or near the Izium area.[47] Russian forces in the city were beginning mass deportations of city residents towards the territory of the Russian Federation.[48]
Following the start of a new Russian offensive mid-April 2022, Russian troops had some success through localized advances south and southwest of Izium on 20 April.[49] As of 26 April, Russian forces continued to make slow progress south of Izium,[50] while the following day, the Russian military captured Zavody west of Izium, as well as the outskirts of Velyka Komyshuvakha, 20 kilometers west of the city.[51][52]
On 27 April 2022, Ukrainian publication Defense Express claimed that Valery Gerasimov the Chief of General Staff of the Russian Army arrived in Izium to personally command the Russian offensive in the region.[53] According to the Ukrainian Independent Information Agency, Gerasimov was wounded on 1 May 2022 near Izium.[54][55] Two US officials confirmed Gerasimov had been in the region but a Ukrainian official denied Ukraine was specifically targeting Gerasimov and said that when the command post was attacked, with 200 Russian soldiers being killed, Gerasimov had already set off to return to Russia. 30 armored vehicles, including tanks, were also claimed to be destroyed.[56] Ukrainian officials claimed the attack killed Russian General Andrei Simonov.[57][58]
By 4 June, the Ukrainians claimed to have largely destroyed the 35th Combined Arms Army in heavy fighting south of Izium. According to CIT analyst Kyrylo Mykhailov, out of 1,500-2,000 infantrymen in its two brigades, only 100-200 were left. In the same report, however, he stated that the Russians had assembled 20 BTGs, of 400-600 troops each, south of the city for a possible offensive.[59][60] According to independent Russian sources, the entirety of the army had not yet been transferred from its headquarters in the Far East, and it represented an incomplete corps with just two full motorised brigades forming the main strike force. The soldiers were also “forced” to fight in the woods, a situation which was compared to the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest. Thus, according to the report, by early June the numbers of combat-ready infantry in certain motorised brigade battalions of the army successfully reached 12-15 people (64th brigade), the combined number of 38th and 64th motorised brigades – less than 100 of truly combat-ready infantry in each brigade.[61]
On 25 June, the Ukrainians claimed that they had carried out a strike using the HIMARS. Ukrainian military said that during this strike over 40 soldiers were killed, including Colonel Andrei Vasilyev. The strike occurred on a Russian military base near Izium. Russia acknowledges the attack but says it hit a hospital and killed two civilians.[62]
In July, several calls were intercepted by the Ukrainians between several Russian soldiers near Izium and their family members, to whom they described the combat conditions. One soldier claimed that out of 90 troops in his company, just 26 were left. Another claimed that his unit had suffered over 20 men killed and 100 wounded in one engagement, and just 20 remained. A third claimed that out of 107 men in his company, just 10 were still alive, and that four of the survivors had deserted. He also said that he was the only one left from his platoon of 22 men.[63][64][65]
On 12 August, citing a report from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Institute for the Study of War concluded that the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade had likely been destroyed as "part of an intentional Kremlin effort to conceal war crimes it committed in Kyiv Oblast." The report went further stating that of the 1,500 members of the brigade, losses were placed at 200-300 likely killed during fighting at Izium and Sloviansk, and that the unit "largely ceased to exist."[66]
Ukraine began a counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region in early September 2022. On 9 September, the suburbs of Oskil and Kapytolivka[uk] were recaptured by the Ukrainian military. By the morning of September 10, Russian forces, leaving their equipment, had withdrawn from the city which was now again under control of Ukrainian forces.[67][68] and local mass graves with 440 bodies were found.[69] Izium's population decreased to just 10,000 due to the war.[70]
Mass graves with more than 440 bodies were found after the Russians were driven out of the town.[69]
In late November 2022, a phone call from a Russian soldier in the 27th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade discussing killing of Izium's citizens during the September retreat was leaked. The soldier detailed a secondhand account of where his commanding officer Colonel Sergey Igorevich Safonov and another officer had stabbed an elderly Ukrainian woman and shot her husband respectively, killing both.[71][72]
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