Russian Infantry Patrols Ambush Ukrainian Troops in Pokrovsk

Small groups of Russian infantry on Monday reached the southern districts of the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, a critical Kremlin objective that Moscow’s troops have fought a bloody campaign to capture for more than a year.

Russian foot patrols were reported by both Russian and Ukrainian milbloggers to have infiltrated into Pokrovsk’s southern districts.

Pokrovsk is a major road hub and a lynchpin of Ukrainian defenses in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, a territory Russian authoritarian leader Vladimir Putin claims is part of Russia. Russian forces have fought for more than a year to reach the city, losing at least 10,000 men a month, according to Ukrainian estimates, in bloody, frontal attacks.

As of Tuesday, major Russian combat units appeared not to have advanced into the city. Kyiv Post found no evidence of Russian heavy weapons, such like tanks or infantry fighting vehicles, inside Pokrovsk.

Battle video, published reportedly by an unidentified Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) soldier on Monday and widely shared across information platforms on Tuesday, showed an AFU sedan driving down Pokrovsk’s central Shevchenko Street and coming under small arms fire. A Ukrainian officer with the call sign “Alex” posted: “The new activity by these (raiding groups) is a worrying sign and may indicate a new attempt to capture Pokrovsk.”

At least one Ukrainian soldier was hit in the ambush. Pro-Russian bloggers said the Russian commando-style attack was evidence Ukrainian defenses around Pokrovsk are weakening and claimed that Russian forces had broken into the southern districts of the city in force. The Moscow-loyal writer Frontovik in a Tuesday report said: “The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have driven the enemy out of Zverevo (south of Pokrovsk) and are increasing the offensive near Pokrovsk.”

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Deep State, a military information platform linked with the Ukrainian army intelligence, HUR, in a Tuesday Telegram post said Russian infantry had penetrated into Pokrovsk in small numbers by taking advantage of porous Ukrainian defenses. A Monday update said: “The enemy penetrated the city through Zverevo after one of our brigades ran out of infantry. Losses are growing, and so is friendly fire, because (Ukrainian) units can’t track the (Russian infiltrators’) routes or locations.”

“Our forces continue to eliminate Russian sabotage groups in the Pokrovsk and other directions. Russia’s tactics remain the same – they are attempting to seize new positions using small groups. Ukrainian units are employing all necessary means to detect and neutralize such enemy activity,” Zelensky said. The Ukrainian leader in the evening video address singled out the 25th Airborne Brigade, a paratrooper unit stationed in the Pokrovsk sector for more than three years, for hard fighting and holding its positions.

President Volodymyr Zelensky in a Monday evening statement said he had received a report on the presence of Russian infantry now inside Pokrovsk with army commander Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky and discussed countermeasures.

The Russian infantry push into Pokrovsk over the weekend took advantage of gaps in Ukrainian defenses and thin manning of defensive positions, a Telegram report published by an officer in Ukraine’s 46th Brigade said. Two reserve formations – 155th Mechanized Brigade and 68th Jaeger Brigade – were deploying to the sector so that “the situation does not turn into disaster,” that report said. Civilian sources reported small arms firefights taking place inside the city.

“The hunt for and destruction of these groups (of Russian infiltrators in Pokrovsk) is still ongoing. Some have been killed and some are still alive. The enemy’s goal is obvious – to gain a foothold, wait for reinforcements to arrive, and take control of the Defenders of Ukraine Street [in the center of Pokrovsk],” a Tuesday update said.

Since May and the launch of Russia’s summer offensive, Russian attacks in the Pokrovsk sector have pressed hardest to the northwest and southwest of the city, in an apparent bid to cut supply to Ukrainian fortifications around Pokrovsk itself. As of mid-July, Kremlin advances had placed Russian front lines 17-25 kilometers’ distant from the E50 highway and the T0515 T0406 roads, the main routes used by the Ukrainian military to supply Pokrovsk.

All three roads are under intermittent Russian artillery bombardment and drone attack, but civilian and vehicle traffic, in some stretches protected by anti-drone nets erected by the Ukrainian military, was still moving on Tuesday, news reports said.

In its Tuesday morning situation update, Ukraine’s joint forces Khortytsia command, the main headquarters for operations along the eastern front, reported Russian air and rocket artillery strikes were intensifying in its area of responsibility.

Ground fighting was taking place across the line, with most Russian attacks coming in the form of small groups of infantry attempting to push into Ukrainian positions on foot. The situation was generally stable, with the most intense fighting taking place around Pokrovsk, the report said. There was no mention of Russian infantry infiltrating into the city.

Russian Air Force strike aircraft on Tuesday were continuing a bombing campaign focusing on front line and rear area positions in the Pokrovsk sector. A glide bomb targeting the nearby city of Kramatorsk struck and demolished upper floors of an apartment building, killing a 10-year-old boy and injuring five adults, a statement from Ukraine’s Ministry of Emergency Situations said.

The French OSINT researcher Clement Molin shows a heavy concentration of Russian air strikes in the Pokrovsk sector, especially to the north of the city, with 450 individual bombs dropped or aerial rockets launched in that area in the past week.

Although Ukrainian forces armed with drones and artillery – much of it domestically manufactured – are generally able to stop and inflict heavy casualties on Russian ground attacks, shortages of Ukrainian combat aircraft and especially long-range anti-aircraft missiles allow Russian bombers to launch glide bombs at Ukrainian positions with near impunity.

Ukraine’s Western allies have promised Ukraine more air defense assistance, but with the exception of tiny quantities of a French-Italian anti-aircraft system called SAMP/T don’t produce long-range air defense systems at all. The United States, a now ambivalent supporter of Ukrainian resistance to Russia, last week promised Ukraine advanced Patriot air defense systems, a highly effective weapon, provided some other nation besides the US paid for it.