ANALYSIS: Major Russian Advance in Eastern Pokrovsk Sector, Kyiv Forced to Send Reserves

Russia’s armed forces have punched deep behind Ukrainian lines in the war’s hottest Pokrovsk sector, and possibly scored Moscow’s most successful breakthrough in the past twelve months, news reports and milblogger comment in Ukraine said Tuesday, Aug. 12.

Russian infantry teams operating on foot without heavy weapons like tanks and armored personnel carriers had pushed at least 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) and by some reports as much as 17 kilometers (10.6 miles) into Ukrainian-army-held territory to the north of Pokrovsk, in a push reaching the town of Dobropillia, the reports said.

The industrial city of Pokrovsk had been a declared main objective for a bloody Russian offensive launched more than a year ago in eastern Ukraine. The Russian thrust towards Dobropillia was on a narrow front and, if consolidated, would make it even more difficult for Ukrainian forces to supply the Pokrovsk salient, reports said.

A Tuesday morning statement from Ukraine’s Army General Staff said small groups of “infiltrating Russian infantry had moved past the first line of Ukrainian positions.”

Their numbers were too small to hold ground gained and Ukrainian reserves were in motion to contain and eliminate them, that statement said.

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“(T)he situation is and remains complex, and the fighting in this region is the most intense compared to other sections of the front line. However, the Ukrainian troops are making every effort to ensure that even those groups of Russians who managed to infiltrate through the front line are destroyed as soon as possible. Which is what is happening,” the official Kyiv statement said in part.

A Tuesday situation update published by Joint Forces Dnipro (JFD), the Ukrainian regional headquarters responsible for the Pokrovsk sector, said Russian forces had attacked in the vicinity of Dobropillia and the neighboring villages of Poltavka, Nove Shakhove, Zapovedne, Kucheriv Yar, Rusyn Yar, Mayak, and Dorozhne. All were repelled, that statement said.

JFD spokesman Viktor Tregubov, in Tuesday comments to media, repeated the official Kyiv message that the Russian advance was groups of infantry operating under cover, without heavy weapons, who are unable to hold ground. “These are groups of several individuals,” Tregubov said “You need to understand they can’t take over any territory. These are groups of ten to fifteen people.”

Independent Ukrainian military information platforms and observers described a more dangerous situation belying the army statements.

The Ukrainian battlefield monitoring group DeepState, late on Monday evening, reported Russian infantry operating in the vicinity of Dobropillia had cut the highway connecting the town to Pokrovsk, and that Russian combat units now were digging in Kucheriv Yar, Zolotyi Kolodiaz, and Vesele, and attempting to grab footholds in the villages of Petrivka and Novovodiane. A Tuesday estimate by DeepState said that “about two dozen” Russians were in Vesele village and “more were coming.”

The Russian push broke through a belt of prepared but unmanned fortifications in the vicinity of Zolotyi and Kolodiaz Shakhove, compromising that defensive line, the DeepState report said. Some Ukrainian media said Russia’s 1st and 9th Motor Rifle Brigades were leading the infiltrations and attacks.

Russian military social media offered no content aside from repeating Ukrainian reports about operations around Dobropillia. Russia’s Defense Ministry by midday Tuesday had not mentioned it.

Retired Ukrainian army officer Bohdan Krotevych, a former senior officer in Ukraine’s 1st Corps “Azov,” in a late Monday open letter to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted on his personal “X” channel, attacked army leadership for ignoring what he said were weeks of warnings by soldiers in the field of critically short manning of defensive positions in the Pokrovsk sector, and warned of potential collapse of the entire Pokrovsk salient.

“Mr. President, I honestly don’t know what exactly you are being told, but I can tell you: the Pokrovsk-Konstyantynivka sector is, without exaggeration, a complete mess. And this mess has been growing for a long time, getting worse every day….The line of combat contact as a permanent line does not actually exist. Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad are almost surrounded. Kostyantynivka is semi-encircled. The enemy is advancing in the direction of Kramatorsk and Druzhkivka. The problem has been increasing since last year. They warned about this publicly, and that is exactly what happened.”

Krotevych’s complaints were widely echoed by Ukraine’s energetic and often outspoken milbloggers.

The writer “Alex,” a lieutenant in an infantry outfit, said of the Russian breakthrough: “The situation in Donetsk (sector) is really critical, in addition to the (Russian) infantry, which has established itself at the lines already marked on the map, there are also (mobile sabotage groups) who are trying to sneak further into our rear areas and create problems.”

The widely-read Stanislav Bunyatov wrote: “The situation in the Druzhkiv direction is really terrible…

Such breakthroughs are clearly the consequences of an indecisive assessment of one’s own forces and means, as well as the enemy’s capabilities. The enemy does not appear from the air and does not make such breakthroughs at one moment – it was his work, there were strikes at the junction of positions, there were circumstances that indicated such consequences in the near future, but they did not react to them in time. This is not the fault of just one brigade – it is a systemic problem that the enemy very skillfully used to his advantage.”Open-source reports and unit statements confirmed Kyiv was deploying reserve units to the Dobropillia sector, among them elements from 4th National Guard Brigade “Rubizh” and 92nd Assault Brigade. The 92nd is a veteran Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) outfit with a combat record dating back to 2014 and Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine. Unit social media feeds on Monday were empty of information about the deployment but past reports showed the 92nd had been off the fighting line in the latter stages of a rest and recovery cycle.

Ukraine’s 1st Corps “Azov” – one of the AFU’s best-known units due to its vicious defense in a siege of the port city of Mariupol in 2022 – on Tuesday announced its units were deploying to the Pokrovsk sector.

The weekly news magazine Ukrainska Pravda reported on Tuesday that 1st Corps had occupied defensive positions in the vicinity of Dobropillia and the Dobropillia-Kramatorsk road.

A Kyiv Post source in Kramatorsk confirmed that Azov air and ground units were in the sector and engaged in combat.

The Azov announcement said: “The situation is complicated and dynamic. The enemy is trying to push forward directly, and he is taking substantial losses in personnel and equipment. Corps units have planned and implemented measures to block enemy forces in the area of operations.”

Baku-based military analyst Agil Rustamzade in a Monday write-up of the Russian breakthrough and Ukrainian counter-moves said: “(I)f this is a well-thought-out (Russian) operation taking into account the logistics and capabilities of the Ukrainian army to stop the breakthrough, then the next 48 hours will be decisive – it will become clear whether the Russian Federation will be able to develop success or whether the offensive will be stalled.”