What Russia’s campaign for Pokrovsk means for Ukraine - Washington Post

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.
Most military analysts believe Pokrovsk will eventually succumb. When it does, it will mark a Pyrrhic victory for Russia that is unlikely by itself to unravel Ukraine’s defense in the country’s east.
But though the final capture of the town will provide Russia only marginal tactical benefits, the campaign shows that the Russian military is learning and adapting — which, if gone unchecked, could foreshadow serious trouble for Ukraine in the near to medium term.
Pokrovsk had a prewar population of 60,000 and occupies 11.42 square miles of terrain (approximately 8.5 Central Parks). Despite being a small town, Pokrovsk played an important role because of its proximity to logistical supply lines: the E-50 highway (one of only three highways connecting the contested eastern region of Donetsk to the rest of Ukraine) and a railroad line that connects the Ukrainian-held portions of Donetsk to the logistical hub of Dnipro city and the rest of the country — key for routing supplies to Ukraine’s frontline forces.
The following maps show what has happened to Pokrovsk since the start of the war:
The Kremlin is hyping the importance of the capture of Pokrovsk in order to portray Russia’s battlefield advances as inevitable. That sense of inevitability is being echoed by some members of President Donald Trump’s negotiating team trying to pull together a peace proposal for the Ukraine war.
But nothing is inevitable. In reality, Russia has paid a heavy price for its relentless campaigning in Donetsk. Over the past 20 months, Russian forces have advanced only about 25 miles from Avdiivka to Pokrovsk. Russian forces 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 through the summer of 2024.
Since then, Russian forces have changed their tactics to deprioritize mechanized assaults in favor of small unit infantry infiltration missions, likely to preserve vehicles that have low survivability against Ukraine’s drones. This switch has enabled Russian forces to continue advances at literal footpace and at high losses.
In just the Pokrovsk area, Russian forces gained only about 12 square miles in October this year. During the same period, they reportedly lost 25,000 troops.
Pokrovsk’s fall is unlikely to result in a breakthrough for the Russians. The forces arrayed there, now well-versed in grinding positional warfare, lack the capacity to move quickly to take more land. And with Russia estimated to have suffered more than 1 million casualties and more than 250,000 killed, and with recruitment failing to fully make up the losses, Russia lacks the troops to decisively punch through at scale — especially since Ukraine maintains a dense field fortification network immediately west of Pokrovsk.
Nevertheless, in this campaign the Russians have demonstrated a newly developed operational template for seizing Ukrainian towns: First, systematically degrade Ukraine’s logistics lines with drones, then send in infantry assault and infiltration groups to overwhelm the beleaguered 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 — 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. Indeed, Russia is already attempting to replicate its lessons from Pokrovsk. In early November, Ukraine shut down rail traffic to Kramatorsk, likely due to encroaching Russian drone threats.
Ukraine needs to find a way to counter this template. It needs to field more effective drone countermeasures to protect its rear, while at the same time better targeting Russia’s drone operators. To do so, Ukraine will need to improve 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.
But to truly stop the Russians, Western aid remains vital. Ukraine needs intelligence sharing to continue, as well as a fresh supply of more conventional weapons to engage midrange targets, including artillery and rockets. As long as Russia keeps making battlefield gains, it is unlikely to pursue meaningful negotiation to end the war. All of the Trump administration’s diplomacy will amount to little until Russia’s advances are stopped cold.