It's curious they are referring to the part of Southern Ukraine near the Crimea as the Nogais Steppe. The Nogais are a mixed Mongol/Turkic people who were named for Nogai Khan, a Mongol general. After the Russians took the region and destroyed the Astrakhan and Crimean Khanates, the Nogai were resettled elsewhere. Some went to Turkey, as they had been loyal to the Ottoman Empire.
In any event, the Russians are still chewing up real estate down there at a very fast pace.
The one thing the Times mentioned is how difficult the Nogaisk Steppe is for the defender. It’s flat as a pancake, with very few natural features on which a defender could rely upon. It is nothing but grassland from horizon to horizon, and in summer above is only a cloudless sky. When the Germans advanced across it in 1941, it conjured up the idea of being lost in the middle of an immense ocean. I doubt they feel any better about it now.