A tipping point for Ukraine – DW – 08/23/2024

Pokrovsk is currently the epicenter of Russia’s war against Ukraine. More than a third of the Russian military’s attacks target that city in the Donbass region. Various reports indicate that Russian forces have reached about 10 kilometers from that city, which is a key resupply center for Ukrainian troops. Residents of Pokrovsk and two other neighboring cities have been called to evacuate.

Oliver Carroll was in Pokrovsk last Tuesday. “It is clear that the city is in a pre-critical stage,” says the British magazine’s correspondent. Economist. “It’s a familiar cycle: Russian artillery starts firing on suburbs, then blimps and drones come into play, cities soon become ghost towns, people flee.”

Businesses and hospitals are still operating, but there are very few people on the streets, says Carroll. In the part of Donbass controlled by Kiev, in towns less than 10 kilometers from the front, a curfew has been in place since August 12 between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m.

Pokrovsk is on the western edge of the Donetsk region, and had about 60,000 residents before the Russian invasion. Now, it is estimated that fewer than 40,000 people live there.

Strategic importance of Pokrovsk

The importance of Pokrovsk is enormous. The city is located at a major railway and road junction.

According to official estimates, in the autumn of 2023, Ukraine took control of about 45 percent of the Donetsk region, where about 480,000 people lived. Since then, that area has decreased, but exact data is not available.

“The Ukrainian army has two major logistics points there, which allow it to control the Ukrainian part of Donbass,” says Juri Butusov, a well-known war correspondent and director of the Ukrainian news website Censor.net.

Austrian military historian Markus Reisner explains that, “Pokrovsk is not only an important base for Ukrainian logistics. If it falls, it will delay supplies to other areas. But it is also, in fact, the base of the third defensive line, and behind it is open ground.” Lieutenant Colonel of the Vienna Military Academy explains that “this is why the situation is so dangerous.”

What is the reason for Russia’s lead?

Observers have noted several factors that affected Russia’s progress, including ammunition shortages in the winter, when supplies did not arrive from the United States. Now the situation has improved, but as Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Sirskyy said recently, Russia still has a three-to-one superiority in artillery shells.

However, according to observers, weapons are not the main reason. “There is a problem in the organization and planning of the war,” believes Juri Butusov. Oliver Carroll also sees another reason: “Ukrainian combat forces are exhausted, some fighters spend 30-40 days in their positions, in some cases up to 70 days.”

Against this backdrop, many experts suspect that the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk is aimed at forcing Russia to ease pressure in the Donbass. So far, this has not happened to the extent that Kiev might have hoped.

what to expect?

According to observers, in recent days, Russian advances in the Pokrovsk area have slowed down. But the prospects are poor. In Butusov’s opinion, “there is now a real threat that the enemy will capture Pokrovsk, Mirnograd and Selydove before the end of the year.” Oliver Carroll has a similar assessment: Pokrovsk could open the way for Russia to the west and south, to Dnipro and Zaporizhzhya, and even to the north.

Experts such as Markus Reisner hope that the West recognizes the danger of Russian advancement towards Pokrovsk and strengthens its support. Butusov believes that only drones can change the situation quickly and for this, Western partners can directly finance the drone factories existing in Ukraine.

(ers/rml)