"A lot of drone operators have already been killed in the city – both south and north."
"The brigades holding Myrnohrad could get encircled."
"There are dead Ukrainian soldiers lying there on our routes, but no one can retrieve them because it's a kill zone."
"Four of our guys have just been killed in the city – two from Brigade N, two from M."
"The f**kers are already near the city – some of them are dead."
These messages are from one of the most skilled drone operators, whom Ukrainska Pravda has been occasionally filming at work since 2023. They might have been taken for yet another set of grim updates from yet another grim day of the war, but for one detail: they were written in a city where, according to recent official statements, "all sabotage groups have been wiped out".
The messages were sent from Pokrovsk, a large city in Donetsk Oblast that has been surrounded by fierce fighting for a year now. In recent months the fighting has spread to the city itself.
Russian troops first infiltrated Pokrovsk in July this year. A video of some Russians firing at a passing vehicle full of Ukrainian soldiers went viral on social media. "The f**kers are already here!" the startled driver shouted, swerving off the road.
Within a couple of weeks, Ukrainian forces had managed to push the Russians out of the city and even escorted a few journalists, including some from Ukrainska Pravda, to Pokrovsk to film its defenders and residents during that phase of the war.
The Russians re-entered the city almost immediately after the mop-up operation – around August. This time their actions were more aggressive, although outwardly the situation seemed to have stabilised and the main focus of attention appeared to have shifted to the counteroffensive on the Dobropillia salient.
As of late October, Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad are encircled by Russian drones and are edging closer each day to being encircled for real.
Ukrainska Pravda explains why the defence of Pokrovsk is falling and what this means.
1. The high command was too slow to react to the escalation in Pokrovsk
The Russians were back in Pokrovsk almost immediately after the much-publicised mop-up operation in July, but due to the concurrent Dobropillia counteroffensive, this information never reached the media. Small Russian infantry groups were regularly slipping through gaps in the Ukrainian positions south of the city, infiltrating deeper and, tragically, shooting both Ukrainian soldiers and civilians.
"It felt as if they [the Russians] were crawling out from under the ground. Maybe they hid in houses after they first came in," a deputy battalion commander from one of the brigades present in the city told Ukrainska Pravda.
He explained that the Ukrainian units had received no additional resources – not even personnel – to hold back the enemy. All the brigades on the defensive were exhausted.
A delivery of ground robotic systems to the brigade was also delayed. These are now almost the only means of delivering ammunition and supplies, or evacuating the wounded. As always, they had to find their own funds to replace vehicles, which are regularly destroyed by Russian FPV drones.
As far as Ukrainska Pravda is aware, there was no shortage of ammunition – enough was being issued – but the ability to use it had long been lost. Carrying ammunition into the city by hand is impossible, and vehicle logistics were cut off long ago.
By 26 October, when the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine publicly acknowledged for the first time that Russian troops are present in Pokrovsk, isolated Russian groups had already passed through the city and were fighting on its northern outskirts, particularly near the cemetery on the road towards the settlements of Rodynske and Dobropillia.
Around the same time, between 24 and 26 October, after regrouping on the western edge of Pokrovsk, Russian troops began advancing towards the village of Hryshyne.
2. The deteriorating situation in Pokrovsk was overshadowed by triumphant news from the Dobropillia salient, where Ukrainian forces had recaptured and cleared 18 villages
However, as Ukrainska Pravda has recently learned, the Ukrainian counteroffensive on the Dobropillia salient, which involved airborne and assault units from the commander-in-chief's reserve, in fact had a crucial strategic purpose.
The Dobropillia salient was meant to be one of two pincers with which the Russians planned to encircle almost the entire unoccupied part of Donetsk Oblast. The salient itself was the southern pincer; the offensive on the town of Sviatohirsk was the northern one. According to the Russians' maximum plan, the two were supposed to meet somewhere around the settlements of Izium and Barvinkove – roughly a hundred kilometres of territorial advance.
Even the partial dismantling of the Dobropillia salient was enough to derail that plan.
3. Syrskyi's blunt statement about the inadmissibility of hiding the truth about the Pokrovsk situation wasn't just rhetoric
As Ukrainska Pravda reported a few days ago, some brigades really do submit misleading information about their positions up the chain of command. At a nominal position N, which a brigade has marked on a situational awareness map as being held, there may in fact be just two wounded infantrymen who are physically unable to fight – or no one at all.
Commanders resort to such deception to avoid another round of inspection, or even criminal proceedings. Another reason is that once they report a lost position, they are often ordered to restore it, but they simply don't have the personnel to do so.
On one hand, this allows commanders to preserve what is already a critically limited number of troops, but on the other, it distorts the perception of reality for those relying on brigade maps and reports to assess the situation, including the Commander-in-Chief himself.
That is why inspection teams began visiting brigades after Syrskyi's statement on the "unacceptability of lies". Their task is to determine whether positions that exist on paper are actually physically held on the battlefield. However, it remains to be seen whether what is essentially yet another paperwork check will have any real effect.
Ukrainska Pravda asked one senior commander on the Pokrovsk front whether he had been able to present the real situation to Syrskyi during his most recent visit. Sadly, we were told that not everyone was given the opportunity to attend the meeting.
"I have repeatedly raised the issue of regrouping and the absence of a second defence line, which will lead to our units being encircled, but they don't listen to us," the commander summarised.
Several other commanders complained to Ukrainska Pravda that there is not a single brigade commander in the photos of Syrskyi's meeting on the Pokrovsk front, even though this is the command level that knows the situation in and around the city best.
Instead, the photos feature several individuals loyal to the Commander-in-Chief, including Valentyn Manko, Head of the Assault Units Directorate and fan of Ukrainian singer-songwriter Stepan Hiha; Robert "Magyar" Brovdi, Commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces; Andrii Klymenko, Commander of Magyar's Birds, the 414th Separate Unmanned Strike Aviation System Brigade; Oleksandr Fatsevych, Deputy Head of the National Police; and Oleh Apostol, Commander of the Air Assault Forces.
4. Apart from inaccurate reports at various levels, the main reasons why Pokrovsk could be lost include the Russians' near-total control of the air and the gaps between infantry positions that they are slipping through
Throughout the Pokrovsk campaign, no technical solution has been found that could have enabled Ukraine's defence forces to regain the initiative in the air.
Russian FPV drones control almost all the logistical routes to Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad. They cut through anti-drone netting, destroy vehicles and, worst of all, kill Ukrainian soldiers. On every road there are so-called "waiting" drones – FPVs lying in ambush by the roadside, waiting to strike any passing vehicle.
Sadly, the defenders of Pokrovsk are sharing the fate of the Ukrainian garrison in Kursk Oblast, where Russian drones effectively cut off all supply routes.
5. The fall of Pokrovsk would almost certainly lead to the fall of its satellite city, Myrnohrad, and, unless the order to withdraw was given in time, the encirclement of the Ukrainian units still holding Myrnohrad
The link between Myrnohrad and Pokrovsk is very straightforward – logistics. All possible routes to Myrnohrad run through or near Pokrovsk. The logistical distance is 20-25 km that must be covered on foot. There are firefights along the routes and casualties.
"If Pokrovsk falls, there will be no way out for the garrison in Myrnohrad," one officer on the Myrnohrad front told Ukrainska Pravda. "Our supply line to Myrnohrad is over 20 km long. Rotations are almost impossible. We can't evacuate the fallen. [The Russians] are pressing towards Rodynske, and Chervonyi Lyman is already under their control. People are working at their limit, and they realise that encirclement is getting closer."
In addition to the possible loss of personnel in Myrnohrad, the soldiers are also worried about the loss of equipment – particularly drone units – worth billions of hryvnias, much of it paid for by their own money and funds raised via donations.
***
The loss of Pokrovsk – a prospect that some of the people we talked to already seem resigned to – would mean losing a large part of Donetsk Oblast and, from a military standpoint, losing a fortified area suitable for defence.
Some 20 km to the north lies Dobropillia, which the Russians are levelling with guided bombs, making it increasingly unsuitable for defence. To the west is Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, south of which the Russians are already advancing with confidence.
Russian forces will not stop.
Author: Olha Kyrylenko for Ukrainska Pravda
Translation: Anna Kybukevych and Tetiana Buchkovska
Editing: Teresa Pearce