The Ukrainian Armed Forces drove Russian occupiers out of Malaya Tokmachka in the Zaporizhzhia region
Ukrainian defense forces have successfully driven Russian occupation troops out of the village of Mala Tokmachka, located in the Polohivsky District of Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
This is reported by military analysts.
Despite intense pressure and the constant deployment of additional reserves, the enemy failed to hold its positions around this strategically important stronghold.
Currently, Ukrainian defenders are clearing the liberated territories and consolidating their positions on new front lines.
For the fifth year in a row, Russian propaganda has been “successfully capturing” a tiny village in Zaporizhzhia Oblast with an area of eight square kilometers.
After more than 1,500 days of continuous assaults, the occupying forces have achieved roughly one result—advancing a few scorched bushes to the left of the village outskirts.
Mala Tokmachka has long ceased to be merely a front line, having become a symbol of the invaders’ total failure.
Before the full-scale invasion, Mala Tokmachka was a relatively large and prosperous southern Ukrainian village with a population of about three thousand people.
It was home to processing plants, standard social infrastructure, and one of the region’s largest correctional facilities.
Today, fewer than a hundred civilians remain in the village—mostly elderly people who were unable or unwilling to evacuate.
Most of the infrastructure has been destroyed: on June 11, 2022, shells burned down the village council building, and on July 18 of that same year, the prison suffered significant damage. Every surviving basement room serves as a shelter.
The name of the settlement derives directly from the hydronym—the Malaya Tokmachka River, which flows nearby and empties into the Kinska River east of the settlement. The river itself was named after the larger Tokmak region.
According to one theory, the name has Turkic roots: the Crimean Tatar word “toqmaq” translates as “hammer, club”—a tool for pounding grain.
In Karion Istomin’s 1691 primer, the word is used to mean “pestle.” In Ukrainian, “tokmachyty” means to pound or beat relentlessly.
The tradition of resistance here is not new: during the Liberation Struggle of 1917–1921, a rebel detachment of about 400 people operated in the village under the command of Ataman Yakov Ishchenko—as part of the 4th Rebel Regiment named after Father Makhno.
To understand why the occupying army, despite its numerical superiority, has been unable to capture eight square kilometers for years, one need only look at a map. The distance from Malaya Tokmachka to Orikhiv is less than two kilometers.
From Orikhiv to Zaporizhzhia—about 37. Advancing here would open a direct path to increasing pressure on the city, and beyond that—broader operational opportunities.
The local terrain plays a decisive role: the village is surrounded by dominant heights, and whoever controls them controls the situation.
The former colony, with its concrete buildings, thick walls, and underground utilities, has turned into a natural fortress within the settlement.
In early March 2022, Mala Tokmachka was briefly occupied, but by May, the Defense Forces had fully liberated it.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine are shifting from a war of attrition to an asymmetric strategy
The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine cited the ratio of losses between the Ukrainian and Russian armies
Syrsky revealed where exactly Russia has concentrated the most troops on the front lines.
In certain areas, Ukrainian Defense Forces managed to advance up to three kilometers deep into Russian defensive lines near Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region.
Currently, positions here are securely held by the 118th Separate Mechanized Brigade, part of the 10th Army Corps under the command of Colonel Oleg Dmytryshyn.
The brigade’s press officer, with the call sign “Fake,” refers to his men as the “cyborgs of Malaya Tokmachka,” drawing a parallel with the defenders of Donetsk Airport.
According to “Mars,” a drone operator, even when the Russians manage to reach the eastern outskirts in weather unfavorable for flight, everything is destroyed by drones and cleared out by assault troops the very next day.
He says that operations in this area have been streamlined to the point of automation.
