What Russia’s campaign for Pokrovsk means for Ukraine
George Barros is the Russia team lead at the Institute for the Study of War.
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Russia had taken the Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk, marking the culmination of a 20-month campaign. Ukraine denied the town had fallen, saying that its troops were still in control of the north. While most military analysts believe Pokrovsk will eventually succumb, its capture will provide Russia with only marginal tactical benefits. However, the campaign shows that the Russian military is learning and adapting, which could foreshadow serious trouble for Ukraine in the near to medium term.
Pokrovsk, a small town with a prewar population of 60,000 and an area of 11.42 square miles, played an important role due to its proximity to logistical supply lines. The E-50 highway and a railroad line connect the Ukrainian-held portions of Donetsk to the logistical hub of Dnipro city and the rest of the country, making it a key route for supplying Ukraine's frontline forces.
The Kremlin is hyping the importance of the capture of Pokrovsk to portray Russia's battlefield advances as inevitable. This sentiment is echoed by some members of President Donald Trump's negotiating team, who are trying to pull together a peace proposal for the Ukraine war. However, nothing is inevitable. Russia has paid a heavy price for its relentless campaigning in Donetsk, advancing only about 25 miles from Avdiivka to Pokrovsk over the past 20 months.
Russian forces have lost at least five divisions' worth of armored vehicles and tanks, more than 1,000 armored vehicles, and over 500 tanks in the Pokrovsk area since beginning offensive operations to seize Avdiivka in October 2023. Since then, they have changed tactics, deprioritizing mechanized assaults in favor of small unit infantry infiltration missions to preserve vehicles that are vulnerable to Ukraine's drones. This switch has enabled Russian forces to continue advancing at a slow pace and at high losses.
In just the Pokrovsk area, Russian forces gained only about 12 square miles in October this year, while reportedly losing 25,000 troops. The fall of Pokrovsk is unlikely to result in a breakthrough for the Russians, as the forces there are well-versed in positional warfare and lack the capacity to move quickly to take more land. With Russia having suffered over 1 million casualties and over 250,000 killed, and recruitment failing to fully make up the losses, they lack the troops to decisively punch through at scale.
Nevertheless, Russia has demonstrated a new operational template for seizing Ukrainian towns. First, they systematically degrade Ukraine's logistics lines with drones, then send in infantry assault and infiltration groups to overwhelm the defenders. Specifically, Russia's ability to weaken Ukraine's battlefield position with intermediate-range strikes is a troubling development. Ukraine's defense of the fortress belt, which includes the highly fortified towns of Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, and Kostiantynivka, will be greatly complicated if Russia can deny Ukraine the railroads and highways needed to supply these strongpoints.
Ukraine needs to counter this template by fielding more effective drone countermeasures to protect its rear and better target Russia's drone operators. This will require improving its ability to strike intermediate-range targets some 40 to 60 miles beyond the front. Un-jammable drones currently in development by Ukraine's entrepreneurial start-ups are part of that solution. However, Western aid remains vital to truly stop the Russians, as Ukraine needs intelligence sharing and a fresh supply of conventional weapons to engage midrange targets, including artillery and rockets.
As long as Russia continues to make battlefield gains, it is unlikely to pursue meaningful negotiations to end the war. All of the Trump administration's diplomacy will amount to little until Russia's advances are stopped cold.
