Pokrovsk split in two: Situation in city and Russian tactics

Russian forces are pressing on Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad. Street battles are raging on the northern outskirts of the city, bringing Russian troops closer to the highway connecting Pokrovsk with neighboring Myrnohrad. The situation is “threatening,” Ukraine’s General Staff says, but denies that Defence Forces have been encircled inside the city. However, this doesn’t apply to the outskirts, where Ukrainian infantry still holds positions.

This was reported by TSN special correspondent Yuliia Kyriienko.

Small-arms combat, mortar shelling and attacks by strike drones — these are drone pilots from the 25th Air Assault Brigade trying to exit Pokrovsk, where their positions were, and evacuating the wounded, because they had to engage the enemy in small-arms combat.

The fact that the occupiers have advanced in the city itself is evidenced by the tricolour that enemy infantry installed on the southwestern outskirts of Pokrovsk. Within an hour, our kamikaze drone is approaching and knocks it down. But this means — the Russians have indeed entered the city's residential areas.

From the beginning of the week, the situation in Pokrovsk began to escalate significantly. Groups of Russians were spotted near the railway and in central districts. The city is gradually turning into a gray zone, and Russian forces have increased pressure on Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad from three sides.

Now, judging by the DeepState map, the city is effectively split between Ukrainian forces and the enemy. Several hundred Russian soldiers have infiltrated from the southwest, through the villages of Zvirove and Pershe Travnia. They are now advancing not only to capture Pokrovsk but also to block Myrnohrad, which is still held by Ukrainian troops. The ring around both cities has narrowed significantly just this week.

Russia has pulled together a grouping of as many as 11,000 occupiers to dislodge our troops from the Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad agglomeration, according to the 7th Corps defending the area. Putin has already declared that both cities are blocked. But this is not true. Enemy infantry is being hunted down and destroyed. And advancing is by no means easy for them.

"The enemy can deploy small motorcycle groups. Two days ago, we destroyed enemy personnel. Today, more motorized equipment was destroyed,” said “Yago,” Commander of the 32nd Mechanized Battalion.

The Russians are operating in Pokrovsk in the same way as they once dislodged our troops from Kursk region. First they filled the entire sky over our defenders with drones. To such an extent that infantrymen entered positions for several days in a row, covering tens of kilometres on foot, with provisions and ammunition.

Then they began to press with infantry from the flanks. Their task, according to the Defence Forces — to reach the road connecting Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad, and block it, which will finally cut the last communication routes with our infantry that still exist.

"If they advance to Hryshyne, then the Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad epic, saga, which has been going on for almost 1.5 years, can be closed. Street fighting and shootouts continue throughout the southern part. This is a grey zone. But the enemy is already running into the northern part," says military analyst Denys Popovych.

The General Staff now states that our troops, despite fighting in the city, are not blocked in Pokrovsk. This is indeed the case, OSINT analysts confirm. But the infantry that has been standing on the outskirts for over a year and a half in the area of Lysivka and Novopavlivka is in a very difficult position.