Pokrovsk is the logistics center for the entire operation in the Donetsk region. The fall of this city could compromise much more than the defense in that area
It can no longer be denied: Ukraine has a serious problem on the front line and is having difficulty solving it. Anticipating what could be an imminent peace negotiation with the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, Russia is doing everything it can to try to capture as much ground as possible before that moment arrives.
And this is particularly visible on the Donetsk front, probably the biggest Russian objective, since the Donbass, made up of this region and Lugansk, have always been Vladimir Putin’s main focuses.
With Lugansk almost completely controlled, it is in its southern neighbor that Russia employs almost all of its forces. This explains that in just one month he managed to conquer around 300 square kilometers and seven important locations, in an advance that has several destinations, but that sees one in particular: Pokrovsk.
This is where the main logistical hub of the war that Ukrainians are fighting in Donetsk is located, and which has been going on since 2014, when pro-Russian rebels declared the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.
The Ukrainian response to these Russian advances has been insufficient. More than what happens on the ground, it is a decision by the Armed Forces that confirms this. General Oleksandr Syrskyi, head of Ukraine’s three military branches, decided to fire the commander who had military leadership in the Donetsk region.
Ukrainian sources confirmed that Oleksandr Lutsenko is no longer in charge of operations in the region, although he has been given another position in the army. Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi was chosen to lead the resistance in Donetsk.
Also this Friday, and on a visit to the command center near Pokrovsk, Oleksandr Syrskyi admitted that the fighting that is currently taking place is against an army that is “superior, especially in terms of human power”.
“The battles are extremely tough. The Russians are sending all available forces to the front, trying to break the defense of our troops”, added the head of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The fear is that the four locations that still separate the Russians from Pokrovsk will fall, a distance of less than six kilometers. According to Deep State, a Ukrainian group close to the Ministry of Defense that follows the war, Russian forces are surrounding Ukrainians “from all sides” in this direction. If these four locations fall, Pokrovsk will be next.
Proof that the situation is clearly tense is the decision by Metinvest, the main Ukrainian steel manufacturer, which announced the suspension of all operations in the only coal mine the country has. According to the same company located on the outskirts of Pokrovsk, Russian forces are just two kilometers away.
That mine produced about half of all coal extraction and was the preferred source of coal, necessary for the production of steel, so crucial to the army.
And it’s not just Pokrovsk. Kurakhove and Velyka Novosilka, also in Donetsk, are in Russia’s sights, which intends to create a domino effect and do something it was unable to do even in the first days of the war, when it advanced at full speed: enter the Dnipropetrovsk region.
If it conquers those three cities, Russia will control three major highways that lead directly to the city of Dnipro, the capital of the region where Russian forces have never been, and which is crucial to maintaining operations on a front line of almost a thousand kilometers.
Faced with this threat, and without revealing what is to come, Oleksandr Syrskyi only mentioned that “unconventional decisions” may be taken soon to “increase the stability of the defense and destroy the occupiers more effectively”.
