Russians abandon their own, trying to escape the carnage

Russian forces had effectively admitted defeat in their infiltration effort around Novopavlivka and Ivanivka. After months of sending small groups through gaps in the Ukrainian line, the Russians stopped trying to build those penetrations into a larger advance and began pulling their main forces farther back below the river. Even Russian sources that had previously exaggerated isolated infiltrations as territorial gains now acknowledged that the situation had reversed and that the forward effort could no longer be sustained. The repeated attempts had become too costly to keep feeding with fresh troops, so Russian commanders abandoned the plan and pulled back from the area instead.

That retreat came after Russian infiltration attempts repeatedly ended in heavy losses. Footage from the sector shows Ukrainian drones dropping grenades onto Russian soldiers as they advance through dense vegetation. Separate FPV strikes show Ukrainian drones flying directly into Russian dugouts and detonating inside them. Near Horikove, another Russian group advancing through vegetation was detected and eliminated by Ukrainian artillery and strike drones before it could establish new positions. Ukrainian FPV operators also destroyed multiple Russian BM-twenty-one Grad multiple launch rocket system supporting Russian operations in the Novopavlivka sector. These repeated losses showed why the infiltration effort had become untenable, with Russian soldiers being eliminated before they could build any lasting presence

As Russian forces withdrew from the Novopavlivka area, the troops still connected to the main line could pull back, while the infiltrators already deep inside Ukrainian territory were left behind. These small groups had slipped through gaps in the front and hidden in concealed positions, waiting for more soldiers to follow so they could eventually gather enough manpower to attack and establish a lasting presence. In Andriivka-Klevtsove, Russian remnants remained well beyond the gray zone after Russia lost the ability to send additional infiltrators into the settlement, leaving them isolated inside Ukrainian controlled territory. With the wider operation abandoned, those men lost the reinforcements they had been waiting for, while even drone deliveries of food and basic supplies stopped. They could no longer build enough combat power to attack or sustain themselves for long, because Russian commanders had effectively written them off and left them there to die or surrender.

With those abandoned groups stranded behind the Ukrainian line, Ukrainian forces began systematically clearing the positions where they were still hiding. In the wider Komar sector, Ukrainian MiG-Twenty-nine aircraft struck a building housing Russian drone operators with Aasm Hammer bombs, removing another element supporting Russian troops across the area. Ukrainian drone units then worked directly against the isolated positions, dropping grenades into houses, basements, dugouts, and vegetation while FPV drones were flown into concealed Russian positions. In Andriivka-Klevtsove, Special Operations Forces attacked Russians hiding inside a house with drones and bomber drones until the surviving soldiers came out and surrendered as a group. Ukrainian forces continued clearing these isolated positions one by one, until the men Russia had left behind were either killed in their hiding places or forced to come out and surrender.

Overall, repeated abandonment will force Russian commanders to account for the risk that every deep infiltration can create another isolated group they later have to rescue or write off. Recovering those men would require sending fresh troops back through routes already covered by Ukrainian drones, increasing the cost of a failed operation even after the main attack has ended. To avoid that, Russian commanders may keep future infiltration groups closer to their own lines or commit more manpower earlier, reducing the flexibility that made the tactic useful in the first place. If this pattern continues, Russian commanders will keep sending small groups through Ukrainian lines and then leaving more of their own soldiers to die when the wider attack fails.