What Would The Russian Capture Of Pokrovsk Mean For The Ukraine War?

POKROVSK, Ukraine -- Pokrovsk once buzzed with life, but on this cold, snowy December day, it feels like a ghost town.

The streets of the once-60,000-strong community were eerily empty, with barely a soul or a car in sight. The only sound is the occasional crack of gunfire and the thunderous boom of distant artillery.

Once a thriving industrial hub in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region where cafes hummed with chatter and the streets pulsed with energy, Pokrovsk is now the latest Ukrainian city caught in the death grip of Russian forces.

Ever since Ukraine's counteroffensive to drive out invading Russian forces culminated with little success in October 2023, Russian troops have slowly pushed westward, capturing the Donetsk city of Avdiyivka and then the town of Vuldehar. Russia currently controls about 60 percent of Donetsk.

Now, reportedly just a few kilometers from the edge of town, Russian troops could be on the verge of taking Pokrovsk, a key logistics hub near the current front line.

"It would be a substantial blow to the Ukrainians, and I'm not sure one that they can stop from happening," David Silbey, a professor of military history at Cornell University in the United States, told RFE/RL.

"If they lose it, they lose that kind of fairly straightforward access to their defensive lines, and that makes it much harder to build up forces there and keep fighting," he said.

Pokrovsk 'Deserted' As Russian Army Draws Near (Video)

Pokrovsk is strategically significant because it serves as a major transportation hub, is close to the front lines, and serves as a supply hub for military operations in the Donbas region.

The rate of Russia's territorial gain in Donetsk has been increasing every month since August despite a surge in Western military aid, raising concerns about a potential Russian breakthrough.

The loss of Pokrovsk would further open the door to one of Russia's main war aims: capturing the rest of the Donetsk region, one of four that Moscow claims to have annexed in November 2022 following a fabricated election.

Russian President Vladimir Putin in June said he would agree to a cease-fire and peace talks only if Ukraine withdrew from the four regions, which also include Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson, and renounced ambitions to join NATO.

Marathon Offensive

But according to George Barros, a military analyst at the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War, Russia may not have the resources for the time being to turn a potential tactical victory in Pokrovsk into an operational advance deeper into Ukraine.

Russia lost more than 500 tanks and 1,000 fighting vehicles -- enough hardware to equip five mechanized divisions -- as well as tens of thousands of troops during the yearlong, 45-kilometer march westward to the outskirts of Pokrovsk.

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"What we're seeing here is the end of a very, very long Russian marathon where the Russians have spent an eye-watering amount of resources to advance over a very objectively small amount of territory," he said.

If the Russians do seize Pokrovsk, the current campaign will likely culminate due to force and resource constraints, Barros says.

He says Russian forces have been unable to capture the strategic hilltop town of Chasiv Yar following their victory in nearby Bakhmut, one of the deadliest battles of the war, in part due to exhaustion.

Russia's extraordinary losses on the way to Pokrovsk could open up an opportunity for Ukraine, Barros adds.

"If the Ukrainians are properly resourced...and they can get more men to the front that are well-equipped -- this would actually be the ideal time to counterattack into a tired and exhausted adversary and inflict some reverses on the Russians," Barros said.

Ukraine's Problems

However, it has been recruitment and training problems perhaps above all else that have allowed Russian forces to cut across eastern Ukraine this year, military experts say.

For months, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's government delayed submitting legislation to boost recruitment amid fears of a popular backlash, even as troop strength at the front lines degraded due to lack of rotation.

The eventual bills, which finally passed parliament in April, also lowered the draft eligibility age from 27 to 25.

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The hesitation over the draft bills coincided with a six-month pause in U.S. military aid that further weakened Ukrainian frontline forces earlier this year.

Russia now no longer has a significant advantage in firepower and unmanned aerial vehicles as the U.S. rushes ammunition to the country and Ukraine cranks up its drone production.

Fear And Hope As Battle For Ukraine’s Pokrovsk Looms

However, the manpower shortage continues all along the front as new recruits try to avoid the infantry amid high casualty rates.

Ukraine has been rushing as many troops into Pokrovsk as they can muster, including from other branches of the armed forces, to prevent its fall. But it comes at the expense of their defense lines elsewhere, Cornell professor Silbey says.

Ukraine doesn't have a chance to rebuild its forces because they are under continuous attack, he says.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is slowly being pushed back in Russia's Kursk region with the help of North Korean troops. Ukraine seized a slice of the Kursk region in a surprise incursion in August but has given up about half its territorial gains.

Kyiv's reported aim in Kursk was to draw Russian troops away from Ukraine and to exchange Russian land for its own when a future peace deal was concluded.

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Amid the shortage of troops in the east of the country, the Kursk operation has been controversial, with some experts saying it didn't succeed in pulling many Russian troops away from the front lines in Donetsk.

Should Russian forces seize Pokrovsk, Silbey says, they will likely pause to consolidate their position before pushing north toward the city of Kramatorsk to seize the next major road network in Donetsk.

He says Putin may push Russian forces to the borders of Luhansk and Donetsk -- which make up the Donbas region -- before seeking a deal with Ukraine.

Russia can't sustain a push deeper into Ukraine, he says, pointing out that Moscow is pulling Soviet tanks from storage -- some made as early as the 1950s -- because it can't replace its losses.

Russia is "winning, but this is destroying them as a military power. This is the last superpower war they'll ever fight, because they're using up all the stores they had left from when they were the Soviet Union."