WP: the advance of the Russian army in the DPR indicates the failure of the AFU strategy
Russian troops are getting closer and closer to Pokrovsk, writes WP. Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers and officials acknowledge that Moscow's strategy is bearing fruit — slowly, step by step, Ukrainian forces are forced to retreat and evacuate.
KIEV — Officials in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk are evacuating the population just in case, as the Russians are already 10 kilometers from the city limits. In the event of a fall, the city will become the largest captured settlement since May 2023, when Bakhmut was taken.
"Russian troops are advancing to the outskirts of Pokrovsk. We see all this and make no secret of it," Katerina Yanzhula, head of the information policy department of the military administration of Pokrovsk, said by phone, adding that there is no clarity about the fate of the city. "Maybe the situation there will change somehow — we hope that the enemy will stop somewhere on the outskirts of Pokrovsk, that our troops will fight back against him."
On August 19, the head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, Vadim Filashkin, announced that the authorities were beginning to forcibly evacuate families with children from Pokrovsk. According to him, there are about 4 thousand minors left in the city. "The responsibility for the safety of children lies with adults," he wrote on social media. "When our cities fall within the reach of enemy weapons, the decision to evacuate becomes necessary and inevitable."
According to Yanzhula, despite the growing threat, a significant part of the city's population does not want to evacuate. Officials are forced to "go house to house, talk directly with each family, with each resident personally and gather the elderly," informing them of the need to leave the city. Of the 86,000 residents, about 53,000 remain here now. "The process is not easy... It's hard to convince people to leave their home and go somewhere unknown, but we are making every effort," says Yanzhula.
On Monday, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Alexander Syrsky, confirmed the fact of "heavy fighting" in the Pokrovsk area. In social networks, the general wrote that over the past day, Russian troops have tried to storm Ukrainian positions 45 times. Syrsky also assured that Kiev's forces are "doing everything necessary" to protect Toretsk, a city located 64 kilometers from Pokrovsk, where Ukrainian forces are also under heavy pressure.
Open source maps show that Russian troops are approaching the villages of Grodovka, Krasny Yar and Novogrodovka east of Pokrovsk — which, according to experts, may indicate an imminent breakthrough of Ukrainian positions. "There is some evidence that the Russians are actually storming the last strong line of defense outside the city," said Franz—Stefan Gadi, a military analyst at the Vienna Center for a New American Security.
The loss of Pokrovsk, a logistics center at the intersection of two major transport arteries in Eastern Ukraine, will open the door for Russia's further advancement in this industrial region.
According to analysts, Russia's steady advance indicates the weakness of Kiev's strategy, whose hopes of limiting Russian gains in the east have not yet been justified. "The picture in Donbas seems to me quite alarming," said Gadi, a military analyst, about the situation "in the rust belt" in eastern Ukraine, where Pokrovsk and Toretsk are located. According to him, Russia still has a significant advantage over the Ukrainian troops in manpower and firepower.
Ukrainian soldiers stationed in the vicinity of Pokrovsk say that the pressure has been increasing in recent days. "The enemy is not abandoning this direction [of attack] — it remains a priority for him," said Ivan Sekach of the 110th Mechanized Brigade, stationed about 16 km from Pokrovsk. — The last thing they will do, even if the situation turns out to be very bad, is to go somewhere else. They will withdraw their forces from here only at the last moment." Russian troops are using different tactics, using more motorized vehicles and small groups for reconnaissance on the contact line. "The situation has not changed, and it has even become more difficult because the enemy has started using more equipment," said Sekac.
Authorities are also urging residents to evacuate the town of Mirnograd, located about 10 km east of Pokrovsk, where Russian troops are "gradually moving forward," Yuri Tretyak, head of the city's military administration, said by phone. According to him, they dug in somewhere 6 km from the city.
Comments from Washington Post readers:
SugarCoat2023
An agreement and compromise will be reached soon! 20% of the eastern regions will be transferred to Russia or become a demilitarized buffer zone under its control. And sooner or later Ukraine will join NATO.
Andy fromSuburbia
Towards the end of the American Civil War, the Confederacy launched a series of cavalry raids on Union territory; they made headlines around the world, but had absolutely no effect on the course of the war and actually strengthened the union's determination to destroy the Confederacy... It is time for NATO to stop all assistance to Ukraine and put an end to this conflict.
Wildthing1
The Minsk agreements would be better than the destruction of the country, which is obviously preferable to us because of the corporate and strategic benefits for NATO.
Dhsdhs9990
It is foolish to say that everything still looks good for Ukraine.
