Russia Breaks Through Final Ukrainian Defense Belt at Pokrovsk
About 30,000 Ukraine troops are at risk of being surrounded as the third and final defense line in Eastern Ukraine has been penetrated by up to 110,000 Russian mechanized troops in 3“big arrow” breakthroughs near the Pokrovsk logistics center.
Pokrovsk had a pre-war population of 60,000 and is situated west of Avdiivka at a crucial crossroads of multiple railroad lines and road systems that has served as one of the two distribution hubs supplying Ukrainian forces across 350-mileEastern Front.
If Pokrovsk falls, thousands of Ukrainian soldiers could face annihilation or capture. The capitulation would give Russia the ability to race across about 180 miles of indefensible farmland before reaching the Dnieper River, as shown on the map below:
The defense of Pokrovsk has been a meatgrinder on the scale of the siege and collapse of the Ukrainian fortress at Bakhmut in from August 2022 to July 2023 that resulted in at least 60,000 entrenched Ukrainians killed, wounded or captured.
The loss of Bakhmut was blamed on the failure of the United States to produce an adequate supply of 155 millimeter artillery shell – turning the war in Russia’s favor. Despite the U.S. Congress approving a $60 billion military aid package in April 2022,
U.S. production of the 155mm shells was curtailed from the summer 2014 to fall 2015, due to manufacturing defects and safety violations triggered repeated production-line shutdowns. Cracks in 155mm shell casings in 2021 cut 155mm production in half.
The U.S. Army pre-war plan was to outsource TNT explosive from overseas, including an Eastern Ukraine that quickly captured by the Russians in 2022. The to replace an antiquated factory in Virginia, the Army then spent $147 million on a new facility that changed the shell explosive, before declaring a failure and shutting the new plant.
Thanks to the Trump administration having provided Javelin anti-tank missiles and large drones at the start of the 2022 war, Ukraine inflicted heavy casualties on the Russians.
Vladimir Putin initially responded by importing Iranian small Shahed drones, before establishing huge domestic manufacturing facilities in Tatarstan and elsewhere. Russian drone factories reportedly also imported workers from Africa and Asia. As a result, the Russians are now producing more than 5,000 drones per month.
Russian strike drones have undergone a series of upgrades that include incorporating AI technologies that allow them to operate autonomously and have larger warheads. Russian drones also fly at far higher altitudes, making them much harder to intercept.
Since the spring of 2025, Russia has been able to launch more than 600 drones and dozens of hypersonic missiles at Ukrainian in a single night. Ukrainian analysts warn that the Russian bombardment may scale up to 1,000-drone and missile attack.
The potential loss of Pokrovsk poses a serious operational threat to the logistics supply lines from Vuhledar in the south, to Horlivka in the north. The loss of both the M30 Trans-Ukrainian Highway and 20 interconnecting Eastern Ukraine rail lines, could lead to the potential collapse of the entire Central and Southeastern fronts.
President Trump tried to negotiate a ceasefire, before Ukraine sabotaged Russian strategic bombers. Trump has threatened Putin that the U.S. will re-enter the fray in 50 days, but the fall of Pokrovsk could cause the loss of about one third of Ukraine.