The calm was enough to infuriate Russian military bloggers, with the Two Majors account suggesting even with the arriving Russian reinforcements, Ukraine was still “extremely far away from being thrown back”.
Apti Alaudinov, the commander of the Chechen Akhmat special forces unit, accused Moscow of deceiving them over the nature of the crisis.
“Some leaders of the ministry of defence, as I understand it, deceived us so much, deceived us, and it turned out that they deceived themselves,” he said in an interview shared online.
As the cover of darkness drew over, Donrf, a Russian military blogger, warned: “For tonight, fighting along the highways. Tough. In fact, the enemy is holding on to the road infrastructure.”
Another Russian blogger concluded: “Another challenging day has come to an end. It’s not going to be an easy night.”
Ukraine had hoped to bring the suffering of war its people have experienced for so long home to its enemy. Five days in, they appeared to be succeeding.