Tag: Pokrovsk

Future Global Order Pivots on Ukraine Proxy War

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Russia’s gradual advance in the Donbass region appears to be forming an operational encirclement of Ukraine’s last major defensive line—its “fortress belt”—a development that could decide not only the fate of the war but also the shape of the emerging global order.

Future Global Order Pivots on Ukraine Proxy War (archived)

Related:

Russia’s Swift March Forward in Donbass [Pokrovsk is the prize]

The Battle of Pokrovsk Begins

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
Weeb Union

Ukraine War Map Looks ‘Grim’ for Zelensky as Russian Offensive Accelerates

Russia’s offensive has concentrated around the Donetsk logistics hub of Pokrovsk as well as Kurakhove. Moscow captured Vuhledar in October and advanced quickly to Velyka Novosilka.

“The Ukrainians have had issues in stabilizing the front here for a long time, and in November, the pace of Russian advance there only quickened even from September and October,” Kastehelmi told Newsweek.

Previously:

Russia’s Swift March Forward in Donbass [Pokrovsk is the prize]

Russia’s Swift March Forward in Donbass [Pokrovsk is the prize]

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Source: The Institute for the Study of War with American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project
 Note: As of Oct. 29
 By The New York Times

Russia’s Swift March Forward in Ukraine’s East

In October, Russia made its largest territorial gains since the summer of 2022, as Ukrainian lines buckled under sustained pressure.

Over the past month, Russian forces have seized more than 160 square miles of land in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, the main theater of the war today. That has allowed them to take control of strategic towns that anchored Ukrainian defenses in the area, beginning with Vuhledar in early October. This past week, battle has raged in Selydove, which now appears lost.

Ultimately, experts say, these gains, among the swiftest of the war, will help the Russian army secure its flanks before launching an assault on the city of Pokrovsk, a key logistics hub for Ukrainian forces in the Donbas.


Source: New York Times analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War with American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project
 Note: As of Oct. 29
By The New York Times

H/T: Flash : [The New York Times] Russia’s Swift March Forward in Ukraine’s East [Donbass]

Previously:

Ukraine Faces a Double Threat if Russia Takes Pokrovsk

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Ukraine Faces a Double Threat if Russia Takes Pokrovsk

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Ukraine Faces a Double Threat if Russia Takes Pokrovsk

Pokrovsk, a once-vibrant city of 80,000 people, is the object of a Russian encircling move that began in July and is creeping within miles of the city as every day passes. The city has served as a key logistics and transportation hub for Ukrainian military operations in eastern Ukraine and is the gateway to conquering the rest of Donetsk Oblast-and potentially on to even bigger prizes such as Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth-largest city before the war.

But Pokrovsk’s fall could have an even more insidious impact on Ukraine’s ability to keep fighting: The city is the source of most of the coal used for the country’s steel and iron industry, once the backbone of the Ukrainian economy and still its second-largest sector, though production has fallen to less than one-third of its pre-war levels. That metallurgical coal is needed to produce pig iron, which is what feeds the majority of Ukraine’s old steel furnaces and a significant chunk of its industrial exports. A healthy steel industry also pays a big share of Ukraine’s tax take, helping fund an economy that operates hand-to-mouth these days.

“Without steel plants, the Ukrainian economy will die. It is a very, very important part of the economy,” said Stanislav Zinchenko, chief executive of GMK Center, an Ukraine-based industrial consultancy.

Poorly trained recruits contribute to loss of Ukrainian territory on eastern front + The US Is Sending $125 Million in New Military Aid to Ukraine

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Some new Ukrainian soldiers refuse to fire at the enemy. Others, according to commanders and fellow fighters, struggle to assemble weapons or to coordinate basic combat movements. A few have even walked away from their posts, abandoning the battlefield altogether.

While Ukraine presses on with its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, its troops are still losing precious ground along the country’s eastern front — a grim erosion that military commanders blame in part on poorly trained recruits drawn from a recent mobilization drive, as well as Russia’s clear superiority in ammunition and air power.

Poorly trained recruits contribute to loss of Ukrainian territory on eastern front, commanders say

Related:

Reuters: Russia and Ukraine report gains as some Ukrainians flee strategic city

But although the incursion is an embarrassment for Russia, Moscow’s forces have continued their gradual advances of the past few months against tired Ukrainian troops in eastern Ukraine worn down by 2-1/2 years of heavy fighting.

Moscow said its troops had taken control of the village of Mezhove in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, and that they had beaten back an attempt by a Ukrainian force to infiltrate its border in a different region to Kyiv’s Aug. 6 incursion.

Ukrainian authorities say Russian troops are now just 10 km (six miles) outside Pokrovsk, an important transport hub in eastern Ukraine, and this week started evacuating elderly residents and children.

…

Moscow’s capture of Pokrovsk, which lies at an intersection of roads and a railway line, would give Russia options to advance in new directions and also cut supply routes used by the Ukrainian military in the Donetsk region.

WSJ: Ukraine Moves to Encircle Russian Troops in Kursk and Digs In for Long Fight

The incursion hasn’t, so far, shifted the dynamic on the war’s main battlefields in eastern Ukraine, where Russia is advancing in toward Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian logistical hub, and Toretsk, a city on strategically important high ground.

The US Is Sending $125 Million in New Military Aid to Ukraine, Officials Say