By Tom Balmforth and Yuliia Dysa
KYIV, Dec 11 (Reuters) – Russia’s capture of Pokrovsk appears to be a matter of ‘when’ not ‘if’, and while its fall will not trigger a collapse in Ukraine’s defences, it weakens Kyiv at a sensitive juncture in U.S.-led negotiations to end the war.
Moscow said on December 1 it was in full control of Pokrovsk, two days before U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy and his son-in-law held Kremlin talks with President Vladimir Putin on a plan they say is close to being finalised.
Ten days on, Ukraine says its troops still hold positions in the north of the city, which was home to 60,000 people before Russia’s full-scale 2022 invasion and served as an important logistical hub for the military until the fighting closed in.
“The new round of pressure on Ukraine to settle the conflict on unfavourable terms is happening in parallel with heavy fighting on this front, which helps Russia because it affects Trump’s perception,” said Mykola Bielieskov, a senior analyst at Ukrainian charitable foundation Come Back Alive.
Ukraine must try to stay in with the Americans – who supply vital intelligence and weapons – while pushing back on a peace deal that Russia says must involve Kyiv’s forces withdrawing from all of the eastern Donbas region where Pokrovsk lies.
Ukraine says that having fought for control of the Donbas since 2014, it has no moral or legal right to cede sovereign territory to an invading power, making control of the industrial area the most contentious issue dividing the warring parties.
Trump’s rhetoric took a harder tone on Ukraine this week as he told Politico that Russia had the upper hand in the war and that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had to start “accepting things”.
RUSSIA’S SLOW ADVANCE
And yet the pace of the Russian assault on Pokrovsk shows how difficult it has been for Moscow’s forces to advance with front lines saturated with killer drones.
The war turned into an attritional struggle after 2022, with neither side able to take territory easily. Russia launched a new offensive in late 2023 and controls around 19.2% of Ukraine, just over 1 percentage point more than at the end of 2022.
Pokrovsk, which sits on elevated ground in the Donetsk region, would be the first city taken by Russia since Avdiivka to the east in early 2024. Most of it lies in ruins and only 1,200 of its inhabitants remain.
Military experts back up the assessments of Ukrainian officials that Ukraine’s defences are unlikely to suddenly collapse in the east – citing its frontline fortifications, drones and the piecemeal nature of Russia’s assault on Pokrovsk.
Russian troops have been advancing in groups of six or fewer, Kyiv’s forces have said, relying on one or two soldiers to breach porous defences and gain a toehold in a building.
“They (the Russians) were accumulating in assault groups, seeping through all around our positions, because, as I say, we have a critical shortage of infantry,” said Lambada, a Ukrainian drone operator who fought in Pokrovsk.
Konrad Muzyka, a military analyst in Poland, said Ukraine rushed in its Skelia Assault Regiment and special forces to shore up Pokrovsk in August, but redeployed them as the front deteriorated in other eastern areas like Lyman and Kupiansk.
Concerns over the depth of Ukraine’s troop reserves have surfaced periodically throughout the war, including from allies like the United States where officials have urged Ukraine to expand the military draft.
The subject is sensitive politically and the government has declined to lower the draft age from 25 to protect the youngest generations from the bloodshed.
WHAT NEXT?
The U.S.-backed peace plan initially proposed that Ukraine pull out of the Donetsk region, where U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Ukraine controls 20% of the land. Zelenskiy said this week that he and European leaders had drawn up a revised 20-point plan, but that there was no agreement on ceding territory. They are expected to send their plan to Washington soon.
Putin said earlier this month that Pokrovsk, which Russia calls Krasnoarmeysk after the Soviet-era Red Army, was the ideal platform from which to launch attacks in any direction.
Russia likely plans to try to envelop the “fortress cities” of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk to the northeast of Pokrovsk, and use the high ground to launch drones over greater distances, Muzyka said.
Moscow’s troops have recently made inroads into both Zaporizhzhia region in the south and Dnipropetrovsk region in the east, even though the latter is not one of the five Ukrainian regions illegally annexed by Russia.
But rapid gains are unlikely.
“The way that they are conducting operations is incredibly slow,” Muzyka said.
Ukraine is emphasising its willingness to secure a “just” peace, mindful that Trump has pledged a quick end to the war and his officials have threatened to curtail support such as intelligence and weapons paid for by European allies.
Kyiv is also hoping those same European allies can supply more financial and military assistance themselves.
Since August, Ukrainian forces have targeted Russia’s oil industry to try to reduce revenue and create shortages of fuel. More recently they have gone after ships sailing to pick up Russian oil in the Black Sea.
Russia has conducted wave upon wave of massive missile and drone strikes, causing large-scale blackouts across Ukraine and serious damage to the electricity system.
One senior European defence official who asked not to be named said the war could continue for a few more years unless a “Trump moment” or a “Putin moment” stopped it, but that he did not think Putin had any intention of giving up.
(Editing by Mike Collett-White and Philippa Fletcher)
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