The Battle for Pokrovsk

Ramifications of a Probable Russian Victory

The Russians are close to a major military victory that could be decisive in ending the Ukraine War on Russian terms. Yet still, the relentless coordinated misinformation propaganda of Ukrainian, CIA, and British MI6 intelligence continues to claim that Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin is being humiliated by Ukrainian resolve and ingenuity in Pokrovsk and elsewhere. This is faithfully believed and disseminated by most American, British, and captive European Union media that have kept the public ignorant and misinformed on the Ukraine War, Ukrainian leadership, and anything and everything about Russia.

Pokrovsk is strategically important because it is a major transportation and logistics hub supplying the Ukrainian Army in eastern and southern Ukraine. Without Pokrovsk, the Ukrainian Army would be choked short of arms,  ammunition, food, fuel, and supplies. Pokrovsk also has a major coke plant important to Ukrainian industry. It has been a well-defended fortress.  And extremely important, beyond Pokrovsk, the terrain and roads are easy, the defenses are weak, and only 387 miles to Kyiv. Moreover, Ukrainian forces have been so weakened by casualties and desertions that its ability to maneuver or reinforce its lines against a substantial Russian breakthrough and advance on Kyiv is seriously limited.

According to an October 25 broadcast by  British attorney Alexander Mercouris in London, the Russian Army has surrounded the key  Ukrainian Army logistics hub in Pokrovsk.  All rail or road logistical support by the Ukrainian Army has now been cutoff or controlled by artillery dominance. Some Ukrainian support is still possible from unpaved roads or forested areas but require carrying supplies 6 to 9 miles by infantry

Before the war in 2022, the population of Pokrovsk was about 60,000.  The civilian population is now less than 1,500.  Pokrovsk is near the western edge of Donetsk oblast (state). The population of Pokrovsk, like the rest of Donetsk, was predominantly Russian ethnic and Russian-speaking, as are eight oblasts in southern and eastern Ukraine and Crimea.

Overall, the Russian ethnic and mixed Russian-Ukrainian minority in Ukraine is about 38 percent, but that Russian minority is a 60 to 90 percent majority in  Donetsk (90%), Lugansk (89%), Crimea/Sevastopol (79%), Zaporizhia (72%), and Kherson (60%), which by Russian law are already part of the Russian Federation, and Odessa (74%), Mykolaiv (72%), Kharkiv (71%), and Dnepropetrovsk (63%) which could be accessed into the Russian Federation depending on the determination of the battlefield or negotiation. Recent polling indicates referendums would favor the Russian Federation. This is at least partly due to the outrageous mistreatment and attempted cultural de-Russification and attempted  forced Ukrainization of the Russian minority following the February 2014 Maidan Revolution and coup in Kyiv.  One of the primary reasons for the Russian intrusion into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, was essentially humanitarian intervention to protect the Russian-ethnic population from an ongoing Ukrainian campaign of cultural and ethnic genocide. The expansion of NATO into Ukraine was considered a major existential threat to the Russians, but the humanitarian threat to the Russian ethnic population was immediate and of considerable concern to the Russian people and Russian legislators in the Duma.

According to Merouris, the official Russian news agency TASS and two other Russian news agencies have indicated that the fall of Pokrovsk is near. The Chief of General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General Valery Gerasimov, is currently on the scene and has offered the Ukrainians trapped in Pokrovsk two choices to avoid annihilation:  surrender or an orderly withdrawal out of the Donetsk oblast. The precise terms of the choices are not available, but having such a choice indicates that the Russians still consider Ukrainians their Slavic and Orthodox Christian brothers and want to continue in that historic relationship. Russia has experienced a major Christian revival since the fall of Communism is 1991.  

Here are some quotes from Ukrainska Pravda on October 24:

“The [Ukrainian] officers, who have been deployed in Pokrovsk and nearby Myrnograd for months, say Russian forces are relentlessly attacking the supply routes into Pokrovsk with fiber-optic UAVs. As a result, reinforcing Ukrainian units must march 10 to 15 kilometers on foot to reach their positions, carrying ammunition, drones, and provisions.”

“Ukrainian forces still hold positions south of Pokrovsk, but some outposts lie isolated behind enemy-held ground.” [My understanding is that most of the remainder of Ukrainian troops now trapped by Russian forces are north of Pokrovsk.]

“Complicating matters is the proliferation of inaccurate reports regarding which positions Ukrainian troops hold. Some marked sites are empty or occupied only by wounded soldiers. Ukraine’s defenses are critically low on infantry. Infantry units are almost cut off from command.”

“We can hear them on the radio. We’ve been dropping water by drone because many soldiers have been on site for two and a half to three months. Evacuation of the wounded is nearly impossible.”

“The main challenge is logistics. You can drive part of the route, but then it’s a 10-to-15-kilometer march under constant drone surveillance, carrying ammo, drones, and food.  [Russian] Reconnaissance drones on fiber-optic feeds, loitering munitions and remote-controlled mines dominate the roads.”

Many American and NATO active and retired military officers have failed to understand Russian military strategy in Ukraine, although the Russians have plainly stated and practiced it. The Russian Strategy of Attrition has been to effectively destroy the Ukrainian Army before any major Russian territorial advances. This reduces Russian casualties. A common and highly developed Russian tactic is to draw Ukrainian forces into three-sided defensive artillery and mine traps, often called “cauldrons,” in which the Russians effectively devastate Ukrainian units. The objective is to reduce the Ukrainian Army numbers, weapons, and capabilities so that they will eventually be too weak to resist major Russian advances. The Ukrainian Army has now been weakened to the point that it cannot prevent major breakthroughs on a thinly manned and weaponed front. Russian advances can then be made with relatively few casualties. The Russians generally surround and cut off major population centers rather than engaging is costly direct assaults.

Ukrainian casualty reports have been outrageous misinformation propaganda, claiming Russian casualties have been much higher than Ukrainian. The truth, which makes perfect sense recognizing the mismatch in artillery numbers and ammunition and Russian air and missile dominance, may be that for every Russian soldier killed; 13 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed. For example, even at the start of the war, the Russians had a 10 to 1 advantage in artillery and artillery munitions. Moreover, the Russians have air and missile dominance. The kill ratio probably progressed from about 5 to 1 at the beginning of the war to over 20 to1 as Ukrainian forces have begun to collapse. Military expert and author, Col. Douglas Macgregor (USA, ret.), through several reliable sources recently estimated the Russians have lost 130,000 military killed, but the Ukrainians have lost a tragic and absolutely devastating 1.7 million military killed. What we know for sure, is that Ukraine is running out of manpower, and the Russians are growing in manpower and firepower. Prolonging the war may save face for NATO for a while, but it is destroying Ukraine and its future. The economic and moral ramifications of “fighting to the last Ukrainian” also threaten the unity and future viability of both NATO and the European Union.

Unfortunately, a large faction of Trump’s official and unofficial advisers on the war have a delusional understanding of the war that is a disaster for Ukraine and a potential humanitarian, foreign policy, economic, and political calamity for the United States. Supporters of the delusion include a largely misinformed Congress and most of the clueless deep-state puppet media.