The battle for Pokrovsk has been the subject of military reports for days. For Ukrainian troops, the entrenched fighting on this stretch of the front line is critical.
Twenty-one months after the Russian invasion of Avdiivka, a suburb of Donetsk, Pokrovsk could now be taken by Russian troops as another logistical hub, which would be crucial for control of Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Pokrovsk had a population of about 60,000 and was an important industrial and transport node in the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donbas. By the summer of 2025, there were only about 1,500 people left.
Fighting for the city on the border with the Dnipropetrovsk region has been raging for over a year. The conflict recently spread to city streets.
‘Ticking time bomb’
Rob Lee, a senior fellow in the Eurasia Program at the American Foreign Policy Research Institute, told DW that Pokrovsk is a “big gray area.”
“It is clear that Russian sabotage groups are advancing deep into the city, to the northwest and north,” Lee said. “How much of the entire area they control is still unclear.” He said Russia had significantly increased its troop strength in the city over the past week.
According to various estimates, this could involve 200 to 300 or even more soldiers. “And the more soldiers there are in the city,” Lee said, “the more control Russia has over it.”
Marina Miron, an honorary researcher at the Centre for Military Ethics and the Department of Defence Studies at King’s College London, told DW that the the main problem for Ukrainian forces in Pokrovsk is the Russia’s blocking of key logistics. “Ukrainian troops are being supplied by drones, both aerial and ground drones, because the situation is very dangerous,” Miron said. “If you cannot supply the troops or evacuate casualties, it’s like a ticking time bomb.”
Has Pokrovsk fallen?
Markus Reisner, a historian and active colonel in the Austrian Armed Forces, has analyzed the situation on the Ukrainian front since the start of the war. The Ukrainian armed forces have not left the city for several reasons, he said.
Resiner told the German news channel ntv that Ukraine needed to ensure a new line of defense beyond Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka. He said Ukraine was trying to gain time by halting Russia’s advance. Reisner suggested that Pokrovsk has already fallen.
That would have a significant effect on the course of the war. “Pokrovsk is an important city,” Lee said. “Russia has not achieved any major successes in significant cities. But the capture of Pokrovsk would be a major success for Russia in 2025. In media terms, the capture of the city by the end of the year would be very important.”
No offensive breakthrough
Reisner said Russia had not yet made an offensive breakthrough on the front line — which had been its goal in the summer. Though, he added, Kremlin forces had made significant territorial gains.
If Ukraine were to lose Pokrovsk, military experts say the city would become a central base for Russian troops in the region, as it had been for Ukraine. This would give Russia control of an area with high-rise buildings and dense development, a place where thousands of soldiers could be accommodated. Ukrainian forces, including drone pilots, electronic warfare and reconnaissance units, would have to retreat to forested areas.
Pokrovsk would be the first “operational-tactical” l success for the Russian occupiers since the occupation of Avdiivka, Ukrainian military observer Oleksandr Kovalenko told the Reuters news agency. Before that, he said, for over a year, Russia’s successes had been mainly tactical in nature. “Taking into account the amount of losses and time spent, as well as resources – this is a shame for such a large army,” he said.
Analysts outlined two possible scenarios if Ukrainian forces were forced to evacuate Pokrovsk. Either Vladimir Putin would try to portray this as a victory in Russia in order to agree to negotiations with Ukraine and the West — or the capture of Pokrovsk would make the president determined to launch further offensives. That would mean that other cities in the Donetsk region, such as Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, could become targets, as well as the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region.
Reisner said Ukraine was attempting to force Russia to the negotiating table by exerting pressure through attacks on strategic targets deep in the Russian hinterland. In addition, Ukraine seeks to persuade the United States to sell long-range Tomahawk missiles to the armed forces.
Ultimately, despite heavy losses, Putin believes that he is on the path to victory, Reisner said.
This article was originally written in Russian.
