Pokrovsk is surrounded, Ukrainian troops defend like "turtles in a jar"

The supply line to Pokrovsk was blocked, the Ukrainian defenders became "turtles in a bottle" but the Russian siege did not attack the city.

Recently, Western analysts said: "The Russian army is too weak. It has been fighting for more than a year but still cannot overrun Pokrovsk." It sounds reasonable at first, but in fact it is completely wrong, when the Russian army (RFAF) has occupied thousands of square kilometers of territory around Pokrovsk. Thus, the Pokrovsk fortress is not "invincible" for the RFAF, but rather "no need to rush to attack".

Let’s review the timeline: As early as May this year, Pokrovsk was surrounded by the RFAF on three sides. By mid-July, the encirclement had narrowed to just 15 km, by October it had narrowed to just 5 km and Russian UAVs had effectively cut off the Ukrainian defenders’ supply lines in Pokrovsk.

A forced attack at this point could have ended easily, if compared to the recent RFAF operation in the Sudzha (Kursk) region, where the RFAF launched a full-scale attack, quickly pushing the Ukrainian forces out of Russian territory. But with Pokrovsk, the Russians only entered the city in small units, with no signs of a major attack. Why?

The answer is actually quite simple: as the battlefield situation changed, the RFAF’s three core functions had long since been undermined. The rush to seize it now was not the most important issue for Moscow; in fact, whether the RFAF could capture Pokrovsk was far less important than whether the Ukrainian army (AFU) could hold it.

First, let's discuss Pokrovsk's three paralyzed "key strategic functions." This is the core reason why a fierce attack is unnecessary for the RFAF at this time.

By August 2024, the RFAF had taken control of two key towns east of Pokrovsk, Grodivka and Novogedivka; effectively blockaded the eastern part of the city.

To defend Pokrovsk, General Syrsky, Commander-in-Chief of the AFU, outlined two strategies: First, he mobilized elite forces to attack the Sudzha area in Russia's Kursk province, implementing the "encircle Wei and save Zhao" plan, in order to reduce pressure on Pokrovsk. Second, he deployed more than 30,000 reserve troops to stop the Russian army's advance in Pokrovsk.

But let's not forget that Pokrovsk, together with its neighboring satellite city of Myrnohrad, covers a total area of ​​over 60 square kilometers. As the earlier Battle of Bakhmut demonstrated, attacking such a large city would require at least 100,000 Russian troops, and would certainly result in heavy casualties - a costly operation that the Russians were completely unwilling to undertake.

Therefore, instead of attacking directly, RFAF applied the strategy considered effective "three encirclements - one opening", aiming to turn this Ukrainian fortress into a "toothless tiger", taking advantage of it to hold back the elite AFU troops here.

For Kiev, Pokrovsk once served three important functions: a logistics center, a barrier east of Dnipropetrovsk, and a coal supply center for the metallurgical industry. But now? All three of these functions had been destroyed by the RFAF, making it irrelevant whether the city would be occupied again or not.

First, let's look at logistics. Pokrovsk was the AFU's biggest transit point, for transporting supplies from central/western Ukraine to the Eastern Front. Supplies to fronts like Chasov Yar and Toretsk mainly passed through here.

However, since last August, the Russian Air Force has bombed all the roads leading to Pokrovsk, completely cutting off the transport system, making this supply center useless. Even the Ukrainian defenders in the city of Pokrovsk had to resort to land transport.

Consider the coal supply. In January of this year, the RFAF advanced west from the southern Pokrovsk bridgehead, almost reaching the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast border. All the coal mines around Pokrovsk were within range of RFAF artillery, forcing mining to stop.

Pokrovsk's position as a major coal supplier to Ukraine's metallurgical industry has been shaken. Steel mills in central and western Ukraine have been forced to buy coal from abroad or close, dealing a further blow to the economy .

More importantly, the RFAF offensive bypassed Pokrovsk, and even if it held the city, it could not stop the Russian advance westward.

Since June this year, Russian forces, on the one hand, have restrained Pokrovsk, on the other hand, captured all of Southern Donetsk and even penetrated into Dnipropetrovsk, a few dozen kilometers southwest of Pokrovsk.

The RFAF has now captured at least 15 villages and towns in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, and even the key town of Novopavlivka is surrounded on three sides. Thus, the AFU's fierce defense of Pokrovsk has failed to stop the Russian offensive.

Now surrounded on three sides, Pokrovsk, once a strategically important city, is a military stalemate – with no way in or out. The RFAF is therefore in no rush to capture it at all costs. In fact, the Ukrainian defenders of Pokrovsk are now “turtles in a bottle”. (photo source: Military Review, Ukrinform, Kyiv Post, Readovka).

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