In three months he will complete his fourth year of contention. But for some time now the details, the course and the ins and outs of the war intervention that returned tanks and explosions to Europe after the Second World War no longer reach the general population as in the early stages. Moments in which battles that will go down in the pages of history books were closely followed, such as the siege of the Azovstal steelworks and the meat grinder that symbolized the fight against the Wagner Group in Bakhmut, a sort of ‘modern Stalingrad’.
But the reality, thousands of kilometers on the front, is that not long ago this carnage entrenched after the Russian offensives and Ukrainian counteroffensives has once again recovered those kinds of battles that make their own names. In Donbas two stand out. The first is that of recent months, that eternal Russian hunt for Kupiansk, a square that kyiv defends tooth and nail to avoid an enemy envelopment that would strike from two flanks.
But the time has come to talk seriously about what is happening in Pokrovsk. Where? In a location that Ukraine cannot afford to lose. And much less, losing it along with Kupiansk. The same Kupiansk that Putin has assured that we will see the Russian flag flying next week. These are all the keys to the Russian advances that threaten to leave drastic changes on the map of the invasion, and without any sign that there will be progress towards a ceasefire or peace negotiation.
What is and where is Pokrovsk?
Let’s get situated. What is Pokrovsk beyond the umpteenth piece of the pie that Moscow keeps picking at slowly, but inexorably? The answer to that question requires saying what it was and what it has been reduced to. It was once one of the great industrial cities of Donbas, the same ones that held their breath in 2014 when they were betting on breaking the economic agreement with Russia and signing with the European Union, with the unknown of how this change would affect traditional mining activity – in this case coal, a lot, all that offered by the largest mine in Eastern Europe – and that after the Euromaidan revolts led to the uprising of part of Donbas. And in the self-proclamation of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, to the Russian Federation.
Although it reached its population peak in the early 1980s, with 72,000 inhabitants, that number in 2022 – the year in which Putin launched his campaign – was 60,127 people. At the beginning of this year and after three invasions, in January, that number had dropped to 7,000 people. The most recent data is from last summer. At the end of last July, and not counting soldiers, there were 1,500 civilians left in Pokrovsk.
As happened in enclaves like Bakhmut, in Pokrovsk fighting is taking place in the street, house to house, where different brigades of the Ukrainian Army are fighting a growing enemy, in the midst of an exchange of propaganda messages. However, in the last month and, especially in this last week, all the alarms have gone off with the images that are arriving from this front.
Why does Russia need to conquer Pokrovsk?
To explain why Moscow needs to take Pokrovsk before the harsh winter freezes the battle lines even more – and enters the already known impasse to endure months between now and arms production – we must first explain why Putin wants to take another town that is not even in Donbas. And that happens through Kupiansk. That is, on the front of the Kharkov region -northwest-, which threatens the city of the same name, the second largest in all of Ukraine.
Kupiansk is the other focus of the fighting currently. And last Wednesday’s day was especially bad for Ukraine, with a series of advances that led the Russian Army to assure that it will fall next week and that there are barely 130 buildings left under the control of the Ukrainian resistance. Along with Pokrovsk, Kupiansk had already made headlines at the end of last October. Not because both battles were unknown but because Putin himself mentioned them in a triumphalist speech that recalled the siege of the coastal Mariupol. He announced that they had completely surrounded Kupiansk and the suburbs of Pokrovsk, at the same time that he demanded surrender and even proposed the entry of the international press. He had only allowed something like this in Mariupol.
Taking this into account, Pokrovsk has many similarities with -relevance in military terms, because there were days in which a thousand soldiers died daily on each side-. It is a geostrategic position due to the connections it has as it is an industrial city and the design and logistical infrastructure that this entails, specifically it grants road access to the Dnipropetrovsk region and the city of Kostiantínivka. If it was already a vital communications hub in the past, right now it represents the only stone in Putin’s path to where they really want to get before winter or before talking about any possibility of a truce.
That finish line is about the last two major cities in Donetsk that are still under kyiv’s control, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. If Pokrovsk and Kupiansk fall, Russia could create a kind of strip or line that encompasses the territory of the four annexed regions – in addition to the two regions of Donbas, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia -, but it could also undertake the long-awaited offensive against the remains of Donetsk from a double front that would unite the Russian troops in Kharkov with those in Lugansk.
And the objective of the Donbas front has never changed in all these years and Moscow seeks, at all costs, to reach as far north as possible in the last province of the mining region because it could really change the current course of the conflict. Not immediately, but it would put itself in a privileged position to advance as soon as temperatures drop and strength and supplies have been recovered.
What is happening in Pokrovsk and what does each side say about it?
Currently, the Pokrovsk front practically brings together the different forms of combat that come together on Ukrainian soil. From the deployment of drones to exchanges of conventional artillery, through practically hand-to-hand fights inside buildings. Both sides agree on that, perhaps the only thing, because they are also fighting on the propaganda level. Both kyiv and Moscow downgrade each other’s capabilities in their stories.
In that speech by Putin, the Russian president assured that between Pokrovsk and Kupiansk he has deployed fifty battalions, which represents a whopping 10,500 troops. According to his Ukrainian counterpart, that number is much smaller. In fact, Zelensky went to this front this week in a display of strength and leadership, ensuring that there were between 200 and 300 Russian soldiers there and that they had to focus on the problem of infiltrators, explaining that Moscow was introducing small detachments of a dozen soldiers while attacking the nearby town of Mirnograd.
Perhaps this mention of Russian infiltrators explains kyiv’s latest move, which has not been without surprises. The elite of Ukrainian Intelligence, the Military District of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine known by the acronym GUR, landed in the area with an operation worthy of a Hollywood movie. He entered the battlefield with all his might with an airborne vehicle that carried members of the Timur Special Unit.
Landing of Ukrainian airborne troops on the Pokrovsk front (Donetsk, Donbas) in a special lightning operation against Russia.
That operation would have served to recover supply lines cut by the Russians and several blocks of buildings. Even the head of this Intelligence service, Kirilo Budanov, personally went to the advanced command post in a moment of weakness in the face of the other Intelligence body, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Despite what is announced from this area, the reality is that on Wednesday an announcement was made by the 425th Assault Regiment ‘Skelia’, that they had “returned the Ukrainian flag to the Pokrovsk Municipal Council building.” There were only a few hundred Russians in the city but they had to take back the City Hall?
These types of contradictions contrast with the voices that are already being raised demanding a timely withdrawal to avoid losing more lives and more troops. Beyond the doubts that military bloggers may portray, former Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense Vitali Deinega has asked to get the Ukrainian resistance out of there as soon as possible. The reason is the estimated map of the terrain controlled by each other. It is estimated that Russia threatens the railway station, but also the neighborhoods to the north, south and east. With this scenario, the only escape route is a 5 kilometer wide area in the west that would be increasingly at risk of the Russians tightening the complete encirclement.
Okay, now seriously, what is the real and economic value that Pokrovsk hides?
Indeed, there is small print even if it is in the Cyrillic alphabet. In addition to everything stated above, the truth is that control of Pokrovsk is also key in terms of economics and strategic resources for the future. This statement may seem strange if we think of a mining center for a natural resource, coal, which is no longer so appreciated in the international market.
Taking into account that Russia is not at all willing to follow a path of decarbonization like that undertaken by the European Union, the truth is that despite this energy source there is still something more in the bowels of this territory. Do you remember what was the pillar of the negotiations and commitments that Volodymyr Zelensky’s Government of Ukraine had to make so that US support did not disappear with the Democratic presidency of Joe Biden?
Exactly, Trump has made it clear that they want to collect the ‘investment’ in this war on rare earths and that is why kyiv signed a joint exploitation agreement. Putin also reads the newspapers and in Russia it is not lost on them that all the land they seize before a hypothetical ceasefire would remain under Russian control. At least that has been Moscow’s most basic demand when that possibility has been raised. Well, can you guess what there is under the soil of Pokrovsk besides coal?
Next to a solid fuel production center based on bituminous coal distillate, there are different deposits of lithium, essential for the production of batteries. Regarding the importance of these minerals and key elements in the development of technology, and of which China controls 80% of the known world reserve, the importance is already well known. Only now the importance of the Pokrovsk ruins is also understood.
