Russian troops are steadily advancing on key logistical hub Pokrovsk in the Donbas from the north, east, and south, using small infantry groups and drone surveillance to stretch Ukrainian forces facing acute manpower and equipment shortages.

As bne IntelliNews reported, fighting for Pokrovsk has become intense in the last week, as the Armed Forces of Russia (AFR) concentrate its main attack on the city.

Ukrainian military analyst Ivan Stupak told The Moscow Times: “I believe the city will likely be abandoned within 60 days. Russian forces are gradually narrowing the salient. The corridor into Pokrovsk is only about 17 kilometres wide. It’s still possible to enter and exit relatively safely, but if the situation worsens, staying there will become untenable.” Russia is using its overwhelming advantage in missiles and glide bombs, as well as its evolving upper hand in optical fibre drones to target and destroy Ukrainian fortifications.

Russian forces are conducting attacks along six different fronts in Ukraine in an increasingly successful attempt to further stretch the already thinned out Ukrainian defending forces. As bne IntelliNews reported, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) has been struggling with a growing shortage of men, money and materiel over the last two years. While Ukraine’s prolific production of drones has mitigated its problems, a drones advantage alone is not enough to win the war. Cracks are forming in the AFU defence of key towns like Pokrovsk that the Armed Forces of Russia (AFR) are exploiting, albeit at a huge cost in men and materiel.

Videos shared by Ukrainian Telegram channels and verified by military blogger project Deep State suggest Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups (SRGs) have already broken through the city limits and infiltrated the southern outskirts of Pokrovsk. Footage reportedly filmed by a Ukrainian soldier shows troops coming under fire in a residential area. Deep State confirmed the footage as genuine and said a gap in Ukrainian defences allowed Russian forces to enter the town.

Ukrainian soldiers´ success in stopping their enemy from taking Pokrovsk since last year has long thwarted one of Moscow´s central military goals, although the city itself is heavily damaged and all but a few hundred of the 60,000-strong population has fled.

Analysts say the outcome of the battle will hinge on whether Russian forces succeed in cutting the Pokrovsk–Pavlohrad road, a critical supply route. While that highway remains operational, the road from Pokrovsk east to Kostiantynivka has already been severed by Russian advances, The Moscow Times reports.

“The troops of the 155th Separate Mechanized Brigade and the 68th Jaeger Brigade had to urgently fix the situation to prevent it from turning into a disaster,” Deep State wrote on July 21. It noted that while some Russian SRGs had been eliminated, new groups had re-entered the area by July 25.

The Pokrovsk front is the most active in the war, with an estimated 111,000 Russian soldiers massed on the front line as a key target in Russia’s unfolding summer offensive, according to Ukrainian commander Oleksandr Syrskyi.

Zelenskiy said last week that Pokrovsk has become “the main focus of the war.” Russia´s forces have been trying to take the town since last year, first with frontal assaults and now by trying to encircle the city, which Russia calls by the Soviet-era name Krasnoarmeysk, or Red Army town.

Ukraine slowed the advance this spring by deploying experienced units, laying minefields and other defensive barriers, while harassing Russian forces with large numbers of drones, said Viktor Trehubov, spokesperson for the military administration that covers Pokrovsk.

But the AFR has built on costly lessons learnt in pushing Ukrainian forces out of its Kursk region, which was invaded by the AFU last summer where it first introduced and then scaled the use of fibre-optic cable drones that are impervious to electronic warfare jamming.

Analysts attribute the deteriorating situation to a shortage of Ukrainian infantry and the sheer length of the front, which stretches over 1,000 kilometres from the Sumy region to Kherson.

Russia is advancing on several axes northeast of Pokrovsk, particularly after taking control of the Pokrovsk–Kostiantynivka road earlier this year. Russian forces are also pushing toward the nearby towns of Rodynske and Myrnohrad. If both fall, Pokrovsk would be effectively encircled.

Russian infantry, operating in small groups, are infiltrating behind Ukrainian lines and waiting for reinforcements. Analysts note that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) lack the resources to maintain a continuous line of defence or to systematically clear such infiltrations.

“The situation in Pokrovsk is more fragile than it was two weeks ago. If Ukrainian forces can’t hold, Russia could launch a full assault on Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad before the end of summer,” said Russian military analyst Yan Matveev.

Analysts say the battle for Pokrovsk differs from the earlier battles for Bakhmut and Avdiivka — both of which ultimately fell to Russian forces after protracted frontal assaults and street fighting. In Pokrovsk, Russia appears to be avoiding that approach, relying instead on infiltration and positional warfare.

Pokrovsk is a strategic logistics hub for the AFU, linking Donetsk and Kramatorsk to the Dnipropetrovsk region. It is also home to Ukraine’s only coking coal mine, which had provided 90% of the country’s steel production needs before its closure in January due to the war.

“Based on my experience in Kursk, the end of the defence comes when logistics collapse. There, the Russians cut off our route to Sudzha with drones, and our entire defence line crumbled,” a Ukrainian soldier who previously fought in the Kursk region told the BBC.

The fall of Pokrovsk would open the way for a Russian advance toward Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the last major cities in Donetsk still under Kyiv’s control.

While faster than before, Russia´s territorial gains this year remain trivial in terms of square kilometres taken. The AFU has captured only 5,000 square kilometres of Ukraine since January 2024 -- less than 1% of Ukraine, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. Overall Russia’s advances have doubled from 226 square kilometres in April to around 538 square kilometres in May, according to open-source analyst Pasi Paroinen with the Finnish "Black Bird Group".