OPEN LETTER: Huliaipole and Orikhiv — This Too-Often Forgotten Front Cannot Fall

OPEN LETTER: Huliaipole and Orikhiv — This Too-Often Forgotten Front Cannot Fall

Introduction: A Front Line Barely Named, Yet Holding Southern Europe

Zaporizhzhia, the Media Silence, and What It Costs

Some city names come back every week in war briefings. Pokrovsk. Toretsk. Bakhmut, once. And then there is Huliaipole — a name that rarely makes it past the gates of the major newsrooms, yet one that has, since December 2025, been absorbing a Russian military pressure that the most sober analysts describe as structural, not cyclical. This is not a secondary front. It is a strategic artery that runs, in near-direct line, to Orikhiv, then to Zaporizhzhia, a city of 700,000 people and a symbol of a region that cannot be allowed to fall.

I am writing this letter because I am tired of the silence. Not the silence of the soldiers — they do their work with a consistency that commands respect. The silence of the media, of the commentators, of the Western capitals that continue to file this front under "status quo" when the reality is far more complex. Huliaipole was captured by the Russians in December 2025. Since then, Ukraine launched a counter-offensive, reclaimed 300 km² and 8 settlements by February 2026. But the pressure does not let up. And Orikhiv remains in the crosshairs.

December 2025: The Fall of Huliaipole and What It Reveals

A Symbolic City That Fell into Indifference

The fall of Huliaipole in December 2025 did not happen in a vacuum. It was the result of accumulated pressure over months — repeated assaults by the Russian 5th Combined Arms Army, daily artillery bombardments, high Ukrainian casualties in a sector the command had decided to defend with limited resources. What was lost was not only a city. It was an anchor point that opened a corridor of advance toward the southwest — toward Orikhiv, toward the Zaporizhzhia region itself.

The Russian army did not improvise this offensive. It concentrated its forces, exploited the fatigue of Ukrainian units on rotation, and leveraged a relatively open terrain — steppe, few natural obstacles — to advance with a combination of light infantry, armoured vehicles, and air cover provided by glide bombs. The capture of Huliaipole was a calculated military objective within a larger plan: reach Orikhiv, then potentially Stepnohirsk, then cut the resupply axis running north along the Zaporizhzhia front.

What This Means Geographically

Orikhiv is 98 km from the city of Zaporizhzhia, the regional capital where some 700,000 people still live. Between those two points, the road is flat, exposed, barely defensible without massive resources. If Orikhiv were to fall — and nothing indicates that is imminent, but nothing rules it out — the pressure on the city of Zaporizhzhia would become unsustainable. This is not catastrophism. It is a simple geographic consequence that any field officer can read on a map in three seconds.

People often speak of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, occupied by Russia since 2022, as a major risk factor. It is. But they forget that the civilian city — distinct from the plant — is also a first-order strategic stake. Zaporizhzhia is an industrial hub, a logistics centre, a rail node. Its fall, if it ever occurred, would constitute the most significant Ukrainian setback since the capture of Mariupol in 2022.

February 2026: The Ukrainian Counter-Offensive That Turned the Tide

300 km² Reclaimed — But at What Cost

What Ukraine's Air Assault Forces accomplished in January–February 2026 deserves to be stated plainly: they launched a counter-offensive in a difficult sector, in winter conditions, with limited resources, and they reclaimed 300 km² of territory and 8 settlements. Officially confirmed by the Ukrainian General Staff on February 22, 2026, this tactical success was largely ignored by Western media, which had already filed this front under "frozen." It was not frozen. It was changing hands in pain and blood.

The Ukrainian strategy in this sector relied on mobility, nighttime strikes, massive use of FPV drones to neutralize Russian observation posts, and precision artillery coverage of enemy supply lines. This is not magic — it is tactical competence developed in the fire of four years of war. These soldiers have learned to wage war in a way that no one could have imagined in 2022. And they proved, once again, that the Ukrainian army is capable of initiative, not only resistance.

Syrskyi's Visit: Political Signal and Ground Reality

On March 15, 2026, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, personally traveled to the Huliaipole sector. This is not a routine trip. A commander-in-chief does not visit a "stable" sector — he visits one under pressure, whose troop condition, line integrity, and resource needs he wants to evaluate himself. His presence was confirmed by Ukrainian military sources and relayed by specialist media. It constitutes a clear political signal: this front exists, it matters, it is monitored at the highest level.

But Syrskyi's visit does not resolve the fundamental question: with what resources can Ukraine hold a Zaporizhzhia front under maximum pressure while simultaneously defending Pokrovsk, Toretsk, Kherson, and the front line north of Kharkiv? The honest answer is that no one knows with certainty. What is certain is that every week without additional heavy arms deliveries is a week in which the balance grows more precarious.

32 to 40 Engagements a Day: The Raw Reality of the Huliaipole Sector

Figures That Speak When Words Fall Silent

The combat figures in the Huliaipole sector speak for themselves: between 32 and 40 tactical engagements per day, according to data compiled by the Ukrainian General Staff in daily reports from June 2026. To put those figures in context: the Pokrovsk sector, regularly cited as the most intense in the conflict, records comparable numbers. Huliaipole is therefore not a secondary front in fact — only in media perception. That is a distinction that costs lives, because an under-covered front is an under-funded, under-equipped, under-reinforced front.

Behind each "tactical engagement" in these dry statistics are men fighting in trenches, armoured vehicles destroyed, wounded evacuated under fire, positions taken and then retaken within the same day. The Russian 5th Combined Arms Army is pushing toward Verkhnia Tersa as an intermediate stage before Orikhiv. Every metre gained or lost in those fields represents a human unit of suffering and resistance that strategic maps cannot render.

The Mechanics of Sustained Pressure

Russian doctrine on this front is not about lightning strikes. It is about systematic attrition. The Russian army sends successive assault waves — often composed of poorly trained conscripts and Wagner-list soldiers, recycled into semi-regular units — to identify weak points in Ukrainian defences. It absorbs massive losses knowing that human replacement, however abominable, remains available in the short term. The goal is not to break through in a single day. It is to wear down the defenders until the line collapses on its own.

Facing this mechanic, Ukraine has developed a hybrid response: rapid rotation of elite units, deployment of FPV drones as the first alert and destruction layer, accelerated fortification of second defensive lines, and precision strikes to disrupt Russian concentrations before they reach the contact line. This response works — up to a certain level of pressure. And the question is whether that level will be crossed before reinforcing arms deliveries arrive.

Orikhiv: The City Nobody Wants to Name as the Final Objective

An Underestimated Strategic Node

Orikhiv is a medium-sized city — about 14,000 inhabitants before the war — devastated since 2022, largely evacuated, but strategically indispensable. It controls a road and rail junction that feeds the entire north of the Zaporizhzhia region. Its capture by Russia would open a south-westward corridor that would considerably strengthen Russia's ability to directly threaten the city of Zaporizhzhia. This is not a hypothesis — it is the reading of Ukrainian military planners and the analysts following this front.

Yet Orikhiv is not in the headlines. It is not on the posters at Ukraine support conferences. It is not in specific arms delivery requests. It is a name that circulates in military reports, in analyst discussions, in briefing sessions. But it has not acquired the symbolic notoriety of Mariupol or Bakhmut. And that invisibility makes it vulnerable in a way that military defence alone cannot compensate.

The Stepnohirsk Risk: The Ignored Outpost

Midway between the current contact line and Orikhiv, the town of Stepnohirsk has become, according to Ukrainian military sources cited in June 2026, an explicit Russian target — with a capture order assigned for the end of June 2026. If that information is accurate, it indicates that the Russian army is working to a staged advance plan, not a direct assault. Stepnohirsk first. Then Verkhnia Tersa. Then Orikhiv. Then the approaches to Zaporizhzhia.

This logic of advance through intermediate objectives is militarily rational and formidably difficult to counter when defensive resources are limited. Each captured intermediate objective becomes a launching pad for the next. The Russians know this. The Ukrainians know this. What I am not certain I see in the Western capitals is an awareness that this plan exists and is being executed — not in the future, but now.

What This War in Zaporizhzhia Says About Putin's Overall Strategy

Zaporizhzhia as Symbol of an Annexation Never Renounced

Putin "annexed" the Zaporizhzhia region in September 2022, in a ceremony the entire world refused to recognize. But in the Kremlin's logic, this annexation is not symbolic — it is an existential commitment. Putin cannot, before his own people, abandon what he has declared to be Russia. The pressure on Huliaipole and Orikhiv is therefore not only a tactical manoeuvre — it is the implementation of a promise that cannot be withdrawn without domestic political collapse.

This means the pressure on this front will not cease as long as Putin remains in power, as long as his logistics teams are able to supply men and munitions, and as long as Ukraine is not sufficiently armed to inflict costs high enough to deter any further advance. The question is not whether Russia will stop of its own accord on the Zaporizhzhia front. The answer is no. The question is how to make that advance costly enough to become unsustainable.

A War of Attrition That Ukraine Refuses to Lose

What Ukraine has demonstrated in the Zaporizhzhia sector since 2022 — and more particularly since December 2025 — is a capacity for resistance and counter-offensive that no one should minimize. Reclaiming 300 km² in winter, in difficult logistical conditions, against an army that has thrown all its resources at this axis, is not a matter of luck. It is the result of an army that has learned, that has adapted, that has trained its officers in real combat rather than in manuals. That army deserves weapons equal to its competence.

What I am saying to Western leaders in this letter is simple: stop looking only at the fronts that make the headlines. Zaporizhzhia exists. Huliaipole exists. Orikhiv exists. And the road to Zaporizhzhia — a city of 700,000 people that no one can afford to see fall — runs through those localities you may not know how to spell. Ukraine needs support on those fronts too. Not tomorrow. Now.

My Letter to the Western Chancelleries: Three Precise Demands

Name Zaporizhzhia in NATO Meetings

First demand: name the Zaporizhzhia front explicitly in NATO discussions, in Ukraine support conferences, in the strategic assessments produced by the think tanks you fund. A front that is not named is a front that is not properly equipped. Political visibility is a precondition for resource mobilization. Huliaipole, Orikhiv, Stepnohirsk, Zaporizhzhia — these names must enter the daily strategic vocabulary of Western decision-makers, not remain confined to the intelligence reports read by a handful of specialist analysts.

There is nothing sensational about this demand. It is not a call for escalation. It is a call for consistency: if you say you support Ukraine in its territorial defence, then defending Zaporizhzhia against structural pressure must be as explicitly among your priorities as defending Kharkiv or protecting the border with Poland.

Accelerate Heavy Arms Deliveries to This Sector

Second demand: supply priority for long-range artillery systems, anti-armour munitions, and mobile air defence for the Zaporizhzhia sector. The February 2026 counter-offensive showed that the Ukrainian army can recover ground with the right tools. What it lacks is the capacity to indefinitely absorb Russian assault waves backed by artillery that still enjoys a superiority in ammunition volume. That superiority must be closed — not equalized, closed. Because an army defending its own territory against aggression does not need parity. It needs superiority.

The logic of "not provoking Russia" has cost two years of territory and tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives since 2022. If that logic still applies to Zaporizhzhia, we are collectively going to watch — from our comfortable sofas — a Russian advance that will reach the outskirts of a city of 700,000 people before anyone had the political courage to say: "We should have done more, sooner."

The Third Demand: Cover This Front — Ukraine Needs Visibility as Much as Weapons

The Power of Narrative in a Modern War

In the wars of the 21st century, visibility is a military resource. A front that does not exist in the media does not exist in defence budgets, does not generate popular pressure on governments, does not mobilize NGO donations, does not produce the reporting that sustains public solidarity. Ukraine has understood this better than anyone — Zelensky has been its undisputed master from the very first day of the invasion. But even he cannot cover everything simultaneously. And when Huliaipole is absent from the discourse, that absence is paid in unallocated resources.

The third demand in this letter is therefore addressed as much to journalists as to governments: cover the Zaporizhzhia front. Deploy correspondents to this sector. Request specific briefings on Orikhiv and Stepnohirsk. Publish the maps. Name the villages. Tell the stories of the soldiers holding this line under 32 to 40 assaults per day. This is not sensationalism — it is accountability journalism. Journalism that recognizes that the visibility of a front is sometimes the only thing that keeps it in the political priorities of the countries that can help.

The Collective Responsibility of Balanced Attention

There is no moral hierarchy between the Ukrainian soldiers defending Pokrovsk and those defending Huliaipole. There are no first-class and second-class Ukrainian lives based on how often their sector is mentioned on CNN or in Le Monde. Yet in practice, media attention creates a hierarchy of resources that no one would dare justify morally. It is this structural injustice that this letter wants to name — without accusing any one party in particular, because the reasons for this imbalance are multiple and complex. But naming it is the first step toward correcting it.

Ukraine is waging a total war along a front of more than 1,000 km. Every kilometre of that front deserves attention proportional to the strategic stake it represents. Zaporizhzhia, with Orikhiv as the immediate target and a city of 700,000 people as the backdrop, represents a first-order strategic stake. That reality deserves first-order coverage. And first-order resources.

Conclusion: Orikhiv Cannot Become the Next Name We Regret Not Having Remembered in Time

The History We Write Through Our Silences

The history of this war will be, among other things, the history of what the West chose to see and not to see. It will be the history of the fronts named too late, the cities under-equipped until they fell, the reinforcements promised too slowly. Mariupol, Lysychansk, Avdiivka — those cities are in that history. And I refuse to add Orikhiv and Zaporizhzhia to it. I refuse to have, in ten years, to read the post-mortem analyses explaining why people failed to see what was in fact legible on every map available in June 2026.

This letter is not a cry of despair. It is a call for clarity. Ukraine is holding. The Ukrainian army is fighting with a competence and courage that surpasses anything anyone could have imagined in 2022. But holding is not enough when the pressure is asymmetric and the resources are limited. Name the fronts we avoid naming. Equip the sectors we prefer to ignore. Support an army that is doing exactly what it was asked to do — defending Europe by defending its own territory. This is not generosity. It is enlightened self-interest.

Sign This Letter With Me

I am only a columnist. My letter will not change arms orders, will not redeploy Ukrainian divisions, will not push back Russian assaults. But words, accumulated, repeated, amplified, eventually create a political pressure that even the most cautious governments cannot ignore indefinitely. So I ask you, those of you reading these lines: speak of Orikhiv. Speak of Huliaipole. Speak of the Zaporizhzhia front. Because a front that is named is a front that is defended.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

This open letter is based on publicly available information: Ukrainian General Staff reports, EuroMaidan Press analyses, Ukrinform data on daily combat figures, and information on the Ukrainian counter-offensive of February 2026 in the Huliaipole sector. The figures cited — 300 km², 8 settlements, 98 km to Zaporizhzhia, 700,000 inhabitants, 32–40 engagements per day — are drawn from identified military and journalistic sources. Analyses of Russian strategy and demands addressed to Western chancelleries reflect the editorial judgment of the author. No anonymous sources were used. No scenes or dialogue were invented.

Sources

Primary sources

EuroMaidan Press — Ukraine's Air Assault Forces officially reveal southern counter-offensive that reclaimed 300 km² and eight settlements — February 22, 2026

EuroMaidan Press — Russians stall in Huliaipole — March 24, 2026

EuroMaidan Press — Russia concentrating its biggest push on Zaporizhzhia — March 15, 2026

Secondary sources

Ukrinform — War update: 260 clashes on front line, heavy fighting in Pokrovsk and Huliaipole sectors — June 9, 2026

Ukrinform — Russian troops ordered to capture Stepnohirsk by end of June — June 2026

EuroMaidan Press — Ukraine's drone output grew 12.7% month-on-month — June 11, 2026