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In the days and weeks following Ukraine’s highly publicized incursion into Russia’s Kursk Oblast, analysts and Ukrainian spokesmen said it was in part designed to draw forces supply away from Russia’s offensive in the Donbas.
However, Ukraine’s Supreme Commander Oleksandyr Syrskiy recently confirmed that this hasn’t happened, and that as Russian forces march towards Prokovsk in western Donestk, they are being actively reinforced.
Prokovsk is the center of this most recent chapter in the war, now in the 33rd month of operations. A key logistics and railway hub for the Ukrainian defensive line, Russian Federation forces have been drawing nearer and nearer since July, capturing dozens of positions and towns along the way. The attackers are now just 7 kilometers from the city, an advance that has pierced far enough into Ukrainian lines that it places the defenders to the south at risk of encirclement.
On September 8th, Russian Federation forces took the town of Novohrodivka, 12 kilometers from Prokovsk, which had a pre-war population of 14,000. Reuters claims that Russia has penetrated another 5 kilometers in some areas, according to maps published by Yuri Podolyaka, an influential Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger.
Kyiv Independent, which has provided some of the best coverage throughout the conflict, spoke to several private-sector analysts about what a loss of Prokovsk would look like.
“(Pokrovsk’s) loss as a supply base and an important crossroad of movement is very unfortunate and will hurt a lot,” Pasi Paroinen from the Finland-based OSINT Group Black Bird Group said. “The further the Russians advance, the more they unlock the entire front line to move, the more resources it will take for the Ukrainians to contain”.
Resources are thin enough as it is without a major break in positions. CNN spoke to 6 battlefield commanders recently, who all said desertion and insubordination are becoming a widespread problem. “In just the first four months of 2024, prosecutors launched criminal proceedings against almost 19,000 soldiers who either abandoned their posts or deserted,” CNN wrote, citing the Ukrainian parliament.
In the piece, commanders refer to these derelictions resulting in localized mistakes and losses, especially from failures to communicate properly between recently arrived units. The Independent referenced “tactical errors” but didn’t elaborate.
A difference maker
State-controlled news in Kyiv says the city is one of many in Donestk, and would not amount to a significant trophy. That can be reasonably said to be incorrect as not only would controlling it grant access to a key crossroads of movement to Russian forces, but it would mean Kyiv loses access to its last mine of coking coal in the nation, which is currently in high demand for steel production.
Since the report in the Independent, a significant Ukrainian defensive position at Krasnohorivka, marked in blue without a name, has been lost, threatening the encirclement of two other positions inside the Gulf of Mexico-shaped space just above.
Before any assault on Pokrovsk, which British intelligence analysts recently estimated would take months to carry out based on prior evidence from Bakhmut and Avdiivka, they would need to gain a partial encirclement of Pokrovsk itself, which would also take weeks if not months.
Ukrainian defense analysts speaking with the Independent said that the Russians must require an operational pause soon, as they are far beyond their lines of immediate resupply. Their offensive, which broke through quite quickly after Avdiivka, moved 30 kilometers westward in the past 6 months.
With another offensive arm pressing north on the town of Toretsk, it is only the southern flank that will likely trouble the Russians, the analysts say.
As much as the necessary pause, potential over-exposure, and distance from supply lines might put the attacks in a vulnerable position, Ukraine have little means to take advantage of it other than with continued UAV attacks. Much of the war material the Pokrovsk defenders might have been using to slow this assault went into the attack in Kursk. WaL
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