RUSSIAN forces are pushing hard to capture Pokrovsk in the biggest battle of the Ukraine war – with more than 150,000 soldiers set to storm the fortress city.
Brave Ukrainian forces continue to defend the strategic city from falling into the hands of the Russians – even though it seems inevitable.
The latest frontline map shows how the Russians are pushing deeper into the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk.
The battle for Pokrovsk has been raging for more than a year, but an incursion into Russia‘s Kursk region by Ukrainian forces slowed the Russian advance.
Instead of the full-frontal assaults it used in earlier battles, Russia‘s military has been using a pincer movement to gradually encircle Pokrovsk and threaten Ukrainian supply lines.
Russian forces are fighting Ukrainian troops by sending in small units and drones to disrupt logistics and sow chaos before sending in larger reinforcements.
Ukraine says Russia’s offensive has seen its forces sustain huge losses.
Moscow says it is Ukraine, with its significantly smaller population, that is at risk of running out of men and that its own slower tactics are designed to minimise casualties.
Taking Pokrovsk, dubbed “the gateway to Donetsk” by Russian media, would allow Moscow to push north towards the two largest remaining Ukrainian-controlled cities in the region – Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
Vladimir Putin is pushing hard to gain control of the industrial-rich Donbass region – made up of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Controlling the key crossroads city of Pokrovsk would make it a lot easier for Putin to seize the rest of the area.
And Pokrovsk would be Moscow’s most important single territorial gain inside Ukraine since it took the ruined city of Avdiivka in early 2024.
If captured by the Russians, the city would be the largest in Ukraine to fall since Bakhmut in May 2023.
Footage shows Russian soldiers rolling into it on motorbikes and on the roofs of battered cars and vans amid thick fog in “Mad Max-style”.
Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky has estimated that Russia is massing some 150,000 troops in its push to take Pokrovsk.
He says Ukrainian forces are seeking to remove around 300 Russians, whom Kyiv says have infiltrated the city so far.
Russia‘s defence ministry said that its forces had advanced in the battered city and were fighting house-to-house battles in a bid to eject Ukrainian forces from the city.
Syrskyi previously said the Russian army was preparing its final manoeuvre to capture the city, admitting that the situation for Ukrainian forces there was extremely difficult.
Sources claimed Russia’s best drone units had been hammering Ukraine’s supply lines – using tactics honed in Russia’s Kursk province, where Ukraine was forced to retreat in March.
A challenge for Kyiv
Kyiv has acknowledged that the situation in Pokrovsk has become difficult in recent days, but says its troops are still fighting there and denies they are surrounded.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “The front: our main focus right now is on the Pokrovsk direction and the Zaporizhzhia region, where the Russians are increasing the number and scale of assaults.
“The situation there remains difficult, in part because of weather conditions that favour the attacks.
But we continue to destroy the occupier, and I thank every one of our units, every warrior involved in defending Ukraine’s positions.”
Ukraine’s commanders have refused to order a retreat amid claims their troops continue to inflict eye-watering losses on Russia.
Previous footage showed Ukraine’s special forces fighting Russian soldiers in a desperate battle for the fortress city.
Footage released by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) shows attack drones targeting multiple Russian soldiers before exploding – causing heavy Russian casualties.
Another video shows crack Ukrainian soldiers leaping off a Black Hawk chopper to storm Russian positions in a valiant assault.
The SBU said that the Ukrainian special forces are “systematically destroying” Russian troops and enemy equipment in Pokrovsk.
It said that over the past year, the unit has inflicted heavy losses on the enemy in the Pokrovsk sector, claiming roughly 9,500 enemy personnel killed, and the destruction or damage of large amounts of equipment.
A strategic battle
Russia wants to take the whole of the Donbas region, which comprises the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces.
Ukraine still controls about 10 per cent of Donbas – an area of about 1,930 square miles in mostly northern Donetsk.
Capturing Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka to its northeast, which Russian forces are also trying to envelop, would give Moscow a platform to drive north towards the two biggest remaining Ukrainian-controlled cities in Donetsk – Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
It would also leave Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region to the west, where Russian forces say they have already established a foothold, more vulnerable to Russian advances.
Moscow wants to convince the West that its capture of the remainder of the Donetsk region is inevitable and that it would be better for Kyiv to voluntarily hand it over as part of a peace deal.
Ukraine, which rejects that idea, is anxious to show its Western partners that it can make the Russians pay a heavy price for relatively modest territorial gains and is therefore deserving of continued military and financial aid.
Putin says Donbas is now legally part of Russia. Kyiv and most Western nations reject Moscow’s seizure of the territory as an illegal land grab.
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Western military analysts say that capturing Pokrovsk would be an important win for Russia for operational reasons.
But Russia would still remain well short of its goal of controlling the rest of Donetsk, including the two fortress cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
Putin’s prized jewel
ON Ukraine’s bloody frontline, the besieged town of Pokrovsk, dubbed Putin’s “prize jewel”, is being fiercely defended.
The key town of Pokrovsk is strategically critical for Putin’s territorial ambitions.
It is a vital railway and transport hub – which if captured could give Russia a huge supply line advantage, intelligence officer Philip Ingram told The Sun.
Nicknamed the “gateway to Donetsk” by Russian media, controlling the key crossroads city of Pokrovsk would make it lot easier for Putin to seize the rest of the area.
Detailing the gruelling battle, the military expert described it as a “cauldron” city – completely surrounded by Russian occupied land.
Ingram says: “Russia is trying to surround it [Pokrovsk] and close the sides of the cauldron in to isolate the Ukrainian troops that are stuck there.
“Ukraine has been defending it bravely for over a year now.
“This will remain Russia’s main effort in its battle to try and push the Ukrainians.
“Vladimir Putin himself has put this as something that is critically important for him.”
Comparing it to another tiresome battle fought between Russia and Ukraine, he adds: “This is another Bakhmut for the Russians.”
The fight for Bakhmut ended after months of tense fighting, bombing and drone strikes in 2023 – with some analysts describing it as the bloodiest battle of the entire war.