The Pokrovsk Gambit
Ukraine has defeated Russia's summer offensive. Now comes the fall offensive
The First Battle of Pokrovsk began more than a year and a half ago. Since then, up to 60,000 Russians have been killed trying to take the Donbas stronghold, according to a spokesman for the Dnipro Operational Strategic Group. Starting the second week of August, a new Russian offensive east of Dobropillya sought to exploit a gap in Ukrainian anti-tank ditches on the New Donbass Line with a combination of infiltration tactics, long-range fiber optic drones, and rapid advances on motorcycles.
But the operation transformed into a cauldron battle, with Russians cut off by a concentration of Ukrainian units, only able to receive resupply by drone. Ukrainians responded very quickly with significant forces, causing some observers to suggest the whole thing had been a clever trap. That is unlikely, as the units had to come from elsewhere in the line of contact. However, over the last five weeks, Ukrainian forces have still not closed this cauldron. It lingers, consuming Russian resources, drawing a new army to the Pokrovsk area, where the Russian Ministry of Defense seems intent on a decisive battle for the Donbas.
They should be careful what they wish for, in the Kremlin. Ukraine has already shaped the battleground for the Second Battle of Pokrovsk to their liking. Since the Kremlin is sending reinforcements into this convenient death ground, Ukraine is happy to receive them there rather than, say, Sumy or Kharkhiv, the points on the line of contact from which Russia is now redeploying units to Pokrovsk. Vladimir Putin is betting everything that he can break the Ukrainian armed forces before his economy breaks. The UAF are betting they can break another Russian army at Pokrovsk before the Russian economy breaks.
Taras Myshak, a senior communications officer of the 59th Separate Assault Brigade of the Unmanned Systems Force, said in a recent interview that “the Russian army has accumulated up to 100,000 soldiers” near Pokrovsk, and “their likely goal is to break through to the Dnipropetrovsk region.” Myshak said that one of the new Russian ‘Rubikon’ drone units, the functional equivalent of the 59th, “is operating in our zone. The pilots are quite serious and they are causing a lot of trouble, especially in logistics, in logistical routes, in approaching positions,” but “their assaults have now subsided.”
Moreover, “the occupiers do not have ground-based robotic complexes and heavy bombers” — a reference to Baba Yaga drones — “in their area of responsibility.” Whereas Ukraine has many ground drones already in the area, they “now mainly perform a [casualty] evacuation function. And the Russians actually don't need them, because they don’t pull their own [wounded] out, they don't protect them. They abandon them, so why do they need the NRCs?”
Russians are relying on thermal camouflage to advance at night. “They don't always succeed, we detect them even under these cloaks, but, of course, this creates certain difficulties. And so they have this tactic when they simply freeze,” Myshak said, explaining why so many recent drone videos feature Russians trying to hide by standing or sitting still, as if Ukrainians are the Tyrannosaurus Rex in Jurassic Park that can only see you when you move.
“Now the situation here is very different from what it was in the spring,” a Ukrainian soldier familiar with the Pokrovsk front wrote on 24 August. Six months ago, “the Russian troops moved in groups of 2-4 people and tried to involve large forces to advance. Now they have been forced to significantly reduce their movements and they move exclusively one by one.” Russians can only find relative safety under the densest foliage.
The enemy infantry has become noticeably smaller, but our drone operators have significantly increased. And therefore there has been direct competition for the destruction of the target. Most often, having seen the movement of one occupier, about five crews go up to destroy it.
Density of drones actually increases drone attrition, he writes, for “under such conditions the cost of one target significantly increases.” The electromagnetic spectrum is so congested that frequently, two or more operators are on the same channel.
Now Ukrainians have detected a change in the forces arrayed against them at Pokrovsk. “Before this, the overwhelming majority were convicts from ‘Storm Z’,” says the Peaky Blinders Unit. They were driven like meat for fodder to our drones. Now we're catching elite units” such as Naval Infantry. “It seems that such reinforcement is happening as part of the announced large-scale offensive on Donbas. Whatever... there will be a lot of work, but we're ready”.
“Over the past week, our units repelled about 350 enemy attacks” around Pokrovsk, Gen. Oleksandr Syrski wrote on Facebook this weekend. “This is where the Russians concentrated the major efforts and created the most offensive group trying to breach our defenses.” Altogether, Russians captured about five square kilometers of territory in the area during August, while the UAF “were able to restore control over 26 sq. km. of Ukrainian land.” Syrski reported a similar ratio around Dobropillya.
Surrounded on three sides, at least one Russian Z channel is saying the attempt to rescue the encircled Russian formation east of Dobropillya “will not work, because the sky is theirs, the artillery is simply beating them, the tanks are terrorizing them and it’s just crazy what’s going on.”
A Donbas separatist milblogger acknolwedges the 5:1 drone:Russian ratio, but also has Russian troops encircling Ukrainians everywhere while Ukrainians are simultaneously “creating a threat of encirclement of our troops in the salient area.” A profusion of place-names claimed as territorial gains — all villages in the Pokrovsk area, east of Dobropillya — does not match the observed reality on the ground, according to the open source analysts updating their maps.
“In principle, with the development of drones, the word ‘encirclement’ in such a situation becomes an atavism of the military dictionary,” WarGonzo writes.
The fact is that it is impossible to draw a clear front line in this area; the map is a “layered cake” of our and foreign units. Our forces are entrenched in Zolotoy Kolodez, and at the same time, there are already groups of the Ukrainian Armed Forces behind them, and our troops have also entered their "rear". Defense nodes have been created by both sides throughout the territory. Actions are carried out by small opposing groups and they may well “miss” each other. They are supplied with UAVs.
“The problem is that due to the lack of combat-ready infantry, the Ukrainian Armed Forces cannot simultaneously and completely drive [Russians] out of there and provide a continuous line of defense through which no ‘infiltrators’ can pass,” writes the Ukrainian Star Mongoose channel. “This has to be done gradually, and this gives the enemy time to penetrate this area with more and more sabotage and reconnaissance groups, as well as small and ultra-small assault groups.” Recent videos out of Pokrovsk show, for example, a German-made Leopard tank being used at point-blank range against a Russian sabotage team inside of a building.
“Just a few days ago (somewhere around September 4-5), the Ukrainian Armed Forces again counterattacked the ‘throat’ of the enemy penetration,” Star Mongoose explains elsewhere. “But not in the direction of Zapovednoye - Mayak, as was the case earlier, but to the southeast, from Zapovednoye towards Fyodorovka, they managed to break through to the latter and Boykovka, liberating approximately 8 sq. km.”, producing the current, confusing battlefield picture.
“Summer is coming to an end, the announced summer offensive did not take place on all sections of the front,” Maksym Butolin, chief sergeant of the 54th separate mechanized brigade, said this weekend. “So far this is happening in small infantry groups, by the method of infiltration and accumulation,” creating the illusion of control. Now “I think that the enemy leadership is pushing them to implement the plan, which was for the warm season,” a mass attack on Pokrovsk.
On cue, yesterday Ukrainian Peklo missile drones struck the Russian 41st Combined Arms Army command, which oversees the Pokrovsk offensive, at their headquarters in the shuttered Research Institute of Complex Automation building in occupied Donetsk. Both sides are using drones to make the approaches to the ‘gray zone’ impossible for vehicles. “Now the dominance of drones is constant, not even 5-10 kilometers, but even 15, and 20,” says Volodymyr Nazarenko, a deputy battalion commander. “The sky is constantly buzzing with various kinds of drones, whether they are reconnaissance wings, or strike wings, or copters. The propellers are constantly humming in the air. In these conditions, it is extremely difficult to maintain defense.” Or offense.
“Putin needs sufficient territorial gains to construct a victory narrative for those same 30% of Russians who support continued war,” explains Russian expat and dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky. “This explains his focus on Donetsk and Luhansk while demonstrating flexibility on Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The domestic audience needs the concept of ‘Novorossiya’ validated, but the specific boundaries have become negotiable.” They are being negotiated in the gray zone through drone diplomacy.
Distrusting Z-Patriots, Putin Is Replacing Russian Volunteerism With Terror
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