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Vladimir Putin’s Russian army is cornering the Ukrainian defenders on the Donbass front near Pokrovsk. And not only here.
Pokrovsk – Can Ukraine no longer hold the next city in the war with the Moscow regime in Russia? For weeks, Kiev has been reporting fierce fighting in front of Pokrovsk on the eastern Donbass front.
Ukraine front in Donbass: Kiev troops threatened with encirclement near Pokrovsk
The strategically important city in the Donetsk Oblast, which previously had around 60,000 inhabitants, is currently said to be Kremlin autocrat Vladimir Putin’s primary target in the Ukraine war. It is located just 50 kilometers southwest of the city of Kramatorsk, where the headquarters of the Ukrainian army for the east of the battered country has been located since the fighting began in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the summer of 2014.
Alarming: As the American news magazine Forbes According to reports, hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers are threatened with encirclement southeast of Pokrovsk. The units are supposed to hold the front line there against numerically superior Russian forces. But how long can they guarantee this?
Bloody war in a summer landscape: Ukrainian soldiers load a multiple rocket launcher near Pokrovsk. © IMAGO / NurPhoto
Ukraine war: Vladimir Putin’s troops are on the offensive near Pokrovsk
The Russian troops sent by Putin in violation of international law are said to have now moved within a few kilometers of Pokrovsk, again suffering high losses. Forbes Ukrainian troops have bypassed the line between the village of Memryk and the Vovcha River. From the settlement of Memryk it is still 20 kilometers as the crow flies to the city limits of Pokrovsk. But the Ukrainians are holding this section of the front. It is unclear whether there is another line of defense behind the current positions or whether the Russians have open ground in front of them.
How Forbes further reported, the 25th Ukrainian Airborne Brigade is (still) holding off the Russian attackers just 2.5 kilometers southwest of Memryk near the village of Ukrainsk – among other things by using German-made Marder infantry fighting vehicles. However, if Russia manages to break through at this point, Putin’s troops could encircle the Ukrainian soldiers on this front line and cut off their supplies. Meanwhile, Moscow’s supply of Russian tanks and self-propelled howitzers is rolling continuously towards the Ukrainian front.
Donbass Front in Ukraine: Vuhledar and Pokrovsk under heavy pressure
Worrying: Putin’s army is advancing very quickly on the Pokrovsk front. Only on Wednesday (4 September) the Ministry of Defense in Moscow reported the capture of the village of Karlivka around five kilometers east of Memryk. The speed of the advances is alarming: As the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) recently wrote, the Russian armed forces are said to have conquered a total of 477 square kilometers in Ukraine in August. Many of them in the Donbass. But that’s not all: according to the Ukrainian open source source “Deep State”, the village of Prechystivka also fell further south. According to the Russian Telegram channel “Katyonik”, this attack “looks like a prelude to putting Vuhledar in a pincer movement”.
The small town (formerly 15,000 inhabitants) has been heavily contested since the uprising of the pro-Russian separatists supported by Moscow and is now completely destroyed. However, the Ukrainians have always been able to hold Vuhledar as a front bastion. Now their remaining units are threatened with encirclement here too. If Vuhledar falls and the Russian army succeeds in advancing to the city limits of Pokrovsk, Putin’s troops could advance across a width of more than 50 kilometers in the Donbass. (pm)
