Russia pushes for key Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk as Kiev’s Kursk invasion slows

Russia has made major advances in recent days that threaten to outweigh the gains Ukraine made in its cross-border push into the Kursk region.

The Russian forces are located just a few kilometers from the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, a key logistical hub for the Ukrainian army.

Pokrovsk has an important railway station and major roads and is an important supply and reinforcement point for Ukrainian troops on the eastern front line.

Critics in Kiev fear the country’s military has made a serious miscalculation.

By means of send troops to Kursk Instead of strengthening the eastern front line, the army has left Pokrovsk and other key Ukrainian cities undefended, these critics say.

During a visit to the front line, Armed Forces Commander General Oleksandr Syrskyi said Russia was throwing “everything that can move” into the attack.

“The situation is extremely difficult,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted on Wednesday.

“If we lose Pokrovsk,” warned military expert Mykhaylo Zhyrokhov, “the entire front line will collapse.”

Pokrovsk is next to another town, Myrnohrad. Together, the two settlements had a population of over 100,000 before the war, most of whom have now fled. They are the last major towns in that part of the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control.

The battle for Pokrovsk is actually a continuation of the battle for Avdiivkawhich Ukraine lost in February after months of bloody fighting.

Avdiivka, located about 60 kilometers east of Pokrovsk, was seen as a fortress protecting the settlements and roads to its west, strengthening the Ukrainian presence along the entire front line.

When it finally fell, Avdiivka was left in ruins. It was a serious loss for Ukraine.

That meant Russia could shift its focus to Pokrovsk and the key hilltop town of Khasiv Yar, which overlooks several key towns in Donetsk that are still under Ukrainian control. Heavy fighting there on Saturday left five people dead.

A mass evacuation of Ukrainian citizens from Pokrovsk has been underway for weeks, with thousands reportedly already having left.

General Syrskyi said he was working “to strengthen the defense of our troops in the most difficult areas of the front, to provide the brigades with sufficient ammunition and other equipment and technical resources.”

Russia has long had Pokrovsk as one of its main targets, and its troops have been slowly moving there for months.

Experts believe that Moscow has committed about a third of its Central Army Group, or some 30,000 troops, to the offensive, plus its most combat-capable reserves.

This week, the attack targeted the Ukrainian town of Novohrodivka, angering some in Ukraine who felt the town should have been better defended.

“The trenches in front of Novohrodivka were empty. There was practically no Ukrainian army in the town of 20,000,” Ukrainian MP Mariana Bezuhla wrote on Facebook.

Because the Ukrainian forces were too small and understrength, the army is said to have withdrawn from Novohrodivka to strengthen the defense of Pokrovsk.

“The Ukrainian command probably did not consider the defense of Novohrodivka to be worth the potential losses,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said.

Elsewhere, Russian forces have carried out attacks on the town of Selidove, just south of Novohrodivka, and other nearby areas in the Donetsk region.

The Russian offensive was aided by a shift in tacticswhich increasingly resemble those used earlier in the war by the Wagner mercenary group.

Ukrainian forces report facing wave after wave of Russian infantry sent forward to storm their positions.

Some have these tactics “meat attacks”.

These tactics, while costly, quickly exhaust Ukrainian units that must constantly repel attacks.

Armoured vehicles are used sparingly, complicating the task of Ukrainian tanks and artillery, which have little to aim at on the battlefield.

Russia also uses powerful glide bombs, forcing Ukraine to disperse its troops when shelling begins, sometimes even withdrawing troops from the front line.

Meanwhile, progress in Ukraine’s cross-border offensive has slowed significantly over the past week.

Sudzha, the largest settlement Ukraine has captured from Russia, has a population of about 5,000, three times less than Novohrodivka, the settlement Russia captured earlier this week.

On Tuesday, Ukraine’s supreme commander said Kiev forces had seized 1,294 square kilometers (500 square miles) of territory inside Kursk, including 100 settlements, and captured 594 Russian soldiers.

These figures should be treated with caution, but they are undoubtedly significant. The question is whether they justify the potential losses on Ukraine’s eastern front.

“One of the objectives of the offensive operation in the Kursk direction was to divert significant enemy forces from other directions, primarily from the Pokrovsk and Kurakhove directions,” General Syrskyi said on Tuesday.

But that goal seems to have failed. Russian troops have not been redeployed from the front line at Pokrovsk.

On the contrary, they have been reinforced with additional troops and their advance has accelerated.