While talks are underway on a US plan to end the war in Ukraine, Russia has announced the capture of the cities of Pokrovsk and Vovchansk in the Donetsk region. The Ukrainian government denies this and accuses Russia of propaganda.
Who controls Pokrovsk?
On 1 December, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, citing a report by Russian General Staff chief Valery Gerasimov to Russian President Vladimir Putin, announced that the city’s old Soviet name “Krasnoremysk”, still used by Russia, had been captured. Ukraine changed the name of the “City of the Red Army” to Pokrovsk in 2016.
But on 2 December, the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said it had found no evidence of “full Russian occupation of Pokrovsk”. The same day, a senior NATO official told journalists in Brussels that more than 95% of the city was under Russian control. He added that “there are still some small pockets in the city where there are some Ukrainian forces that are providing some resistance.” He further said that Ukraine is “capable of taking steps so that the fall of Pokrovsk does not have the same strategic impact as it would have if it had occurred on the Russian timeline.”
The Ukrainian military says it has the situation under control. On December 1, it said that despite difficult conditions, the army was repelling enemy attacks in the Pokrovsk metropolitan area. “Our troops are preparing for their tasks this winter. We are strengthening our positions and equipping them appropriately. Last month, the enemy’s plan to capture the Pokrovsk metropolitan area again failed,” a statement from the Airborne Assault Forces said. General Staff spokesman Dmytro Likhovy told the Ukrainform news agency that as of December 3, the northern part of the city along the railway line is under Kiev control.
A staged show for Steve Witkoff?
To prove the alleged capture of Pokrovsk, Moscow released a video showing soldiers holding the Russian flag in the city center. But military expert Jan Matveyev said this was no longer evidence of capture of the city because Russia had captured the city in the past. He said it was a stage show for the visit of United States Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to the Russian capital Moscow.
According to Roman Pohorily and Ruslan Mykula of the Ukrainian analytical project DeepState, in recent weeks the fighting has shifted to the northern part of the city: “Previously, the Russians advanced in groups of two or three before being disabled on the northern outskirts of the city, but now they are advancing in groups of four or five. This suggests that there are now so many Russians in the center of the city that they can advance in closed groups from there,” Mykula said. He continued, due to lack of infantry, they had not yet succeeded in completely driving the Ukrainian forces out of the city, but it was “only a matter of time” as there were more Russians than Ukrainians.
Pohorily said that the Ukrainian strategy of repeatedly “disabling” individual Russian soldiers was not sustainable. Although Ukrainian units were able to recapture individual roads or areas, Russian forces withdrew after a short time as entry routes from the south remained open. “They have a large number of troops there. So, this will not fundamentally resolve the situation,” he predicted.
Austrian military expert Markus Reisner also confirmed to DW that Ukrainian forces are still in control of isolated houses on the outskirts of the city and are resisting Russian efforts to break their resistance with glide bombs. “But from the military’s point of view, the city has already fallen,” he said.
What about Mynohrad?
According to DeepState experts, the outcome in Pokrovsk will also determine the fate of Mynohrad, which is about 7 kilometers (4.34 miles) away. Despite the significantly reduced Russian presence in the city, he said the situation there was even more dangerous: “Logistics in Pokrovsk is still functional,” Mykula said. “But it is almost impossible to enter or leave Mirnohrad, even if the city is not physically surrounded.”
Pohorily reported that Ukrainian troops there had been supplied with drones and ground robots, adding that it was already extremely dangerous to reach or leave the city on foot. He warned, “If Pokrovsk falls, the Russians will control every movement.” “I don’t know how the Ukrainian army will be able to get out of Mirnohrad in such conditions.”
He and Mykola said that the street fighting in Mynohrad was an exception. Instead, Russian troops were advancing on the city’s outskirts from the north, south and east and repeatedly attacking the center with bombs and rockets to drive out Ukrainian forces. “For example, there is a point in the southeast from which they launch drones. This shows that they are quite successful in the southern part of Mirnohrad,” Pohorily said. He said the Russians had managed to make repeated incursions into the villages of Rivne and Svitley, located between Pokrovsk and Mirnohrad.
Could Russia capture the entire Donetsk region?
Pohorily said that “only a miracle” could save the situation for Ukraine and that under such circumstances “the main priority is to save human life.” However, he did not risk predicting what consequences the loss of Pokrovsk and Mirnohrad would have on the rest of the Donetsk region. For Mykula, capturing the cities would make it easier for the Russians to attack the parts of the region that were still independent. “All of them [Russia’s] “Logistics will be concentrated on these cities, which will be converted into bases,” he said. He said that thousands of soldiers can then be deployed there.
The senior NATO officer quoted above also predicted that if Pokrovsk was captured, the Russians would use the city “for logistics and as a springboard to attack other cities in Donetsk.” But he also said that “the fall of Pokrovsk will not lead to the imminent collapse of Ukrainian security, which we still consider unlikely in the near future.” He said it was not a “realistic possibility” that the Russians would take the remaining part of the Donetsk region for “at least a year or two.” Experts at the Institute for War Studies also doubt that the fall of Pokrovsk will significantly accelerate Russia’s conquest of the rest of the Donetsk region.
This article was originally published in Ukrainian.