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On Monday, Moscow claimed control of the town of Memryk in Donetsk. Over the weekend, it captured two more: Vodiane and Nevelske. Russia’s rapid conquests in Donbas mark an offensive with a clear objective: Pokrovsk. Volodymyr Zelensky admitted that the situation on this front is “difficult” but that kyiv is resisting, while Vladimir Putin claims that the offensive on Kursk was a failed attempt at distraction.

Before the war, Pokrovsk had almost 60,000 inhabitants and was a major mining town. In August, kyiv ordered the evacuation of the town, when the front line was just over 10 kilometres from the city. Thirty months into the war, Russia occupies a fifth of Ukraine, most of it in Donbass: 80% of this region is under Russian control, but progress over the past year has been slower than at the start of the offensive. Military and political analysts say the capture of Pokrovsk could be a turning point, as significant as Bakhmut or Avdiivka, the Kyiv Independent notes.

What makes Pokrovsk a strategic military point is its positioning on supply routesThe city is located at the intersection of the T0504 highway, one of the largest in the region, and the railway line, which serves as a gateway for trains from the rest of the country to the neighbouring Dnieper region. If Russia manages to take control of the city, it could block the supply of not only food to the occupied territories, but also all Ukrainian and Western military equipment arriving by train and ensuring Ukrainian resistance in Donbass.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has acknowledged almost daily in his speeches that the situation on this front is difficult, but he guarantees that the necessary forces are being allocated to counter Russian advances. Last week, the commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said in an interview with CNN that “in six days, the enemy did not advance a single meter in the direction of Pokrovsk” and that the most modern equipment from kyiv was being used on this front.

“We are strengthening Ukraine’s long-range capabilities,” Zelensky says

Independent analysis groups, which follow movements on the front using satellite images, confirm a stalemate in the direction of Pokrovsk. Instead, Russian troops are extending the front by 30 to 40 kilometers. to the south, in a “pincer” movementwhich seeks to block between two flanks. On the more active flank, to the south, they conquered small towns and concentrated the fighting on the towns of Kurakhove, Vuhledar, Ukrainsk and Selydove.

Recent developments on the Eastern Front indicate serious problems in Ukraine’s ability to control the Russian offensive. The Pokrovsk Front has the potential to develop into a major crisis.

In this thread I will analyze the situation and the reasons behind it. 1/???? pic.twitter.com/AVOuqP5THe

—Emil Kastehelmi (@emilkastehelmi) September 1, 2024

“The loss of Pokrovsk as a source of supply and a major intersection of movements will be a heavy loss,” Pasi Paroinen of the Black Bird Group, a Finnish think tank, told the Kyiv Independent. “The further the Russians advance, the more they unblock the front line and the more resources they demand from the Ukrainians to contain it,” the analyst explains.

Forced to multiply to protect the southern front, Ukrainian soldiers were eventually surprised by the more numerous Russian troops. The 12th Brigade of the National Guard, which brings together former fighters of the Azov Battalion, reported last Friday that it was facing about 15 attacks a day in the area it controls. Even so, they say that the Russian reports of occupation in some places are false and that fighting continues along the entire front.

In Selydove, a Ukrainian town 20km south of Pokrovsk, the 15th Brigade of the National Guard uses Second World War weapons to fire more than 200 rounds a day. “The enemy attacks in groups of 15 people, sometimes up to 60,” they told the BBC. Last winter, the guns could remain unfired for a whole day, they said.

The arrival of winter could be a new advantage for kyiv. The director of the Center for Security and Cooperation of Ukraine, Dmytro Zhmaylo, is hopeful and says that the Russians will not reach Pokrovsk before the end of the year. On the one hand, because the “pincer” movement that Moscow is using in the regions is finding Strong resistance in the north, at Kramatorsk and Chasiv Yar.On the other hand, because autumn will bring rains that will leave the region too muddy for rapid advances, a natural advantage that kyiv has tried to exploit before.

Winter is coming. Will this be a period of war of “attrition”?

The “last hope” of the Kursk offensive

In addition to the deployment of troops in the region, kyiv’s most effective response came at Kursk.With this offensive, which began on August 6, Ukraine managed to conquer more territories in one month than Russia conquered in the Donbass in an entire year, notes the New York Times.

Syrskyi admitted to CNN that it was a conscious tactic, to Force the diversion of Russian troops from the Eastern Front.by forcing them to multiply, as Moscow has done with Ukrainian troops. “Our strategy is working,” he said, highlighting the progress on the ground, but also the prisoners of war, who can be used for “the exchange fund.”

The military administrator of Pokrovsk, Serhiy Dobryak, describes the offensive in Kursk as the “last hope” of keeping the city from falling into Moscow’s hands. Quoted by the New York Times, Dobryak noted that since April, Russian troops have managed to break through three of the city’s five defensive lines. To hold the remaining two, troops need the “diversion” that Kiev created in Kursk.

Despite Ukrainian optimism about Kursk, Russian President Vladimir Putin insists that the “military operation in Ukraine” is under control and that The unexpected offensive on Kursk changed nothing. “The enemy’s goal was to make us nervous and worried and to transfer troops from one sector to another, to stop our offensive in key areas, primarily in the Donbass,” Putin said during the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, as quoted by Reuters. “Did it work? No,” he concluded.