Russia's Pokrovsk Armor Losses Tripled In October As Ukraine Disrupts Attacks

One of the latest reasons for Russia's ongoing failure to take Pokrovsk is that it went back to trying to use armored assaults. Because Pokrovsk is a smoldering heap of rubble with blocked streets, the Russians attempted to encircle it by attacking over open ground. 

But open ground is precisely where Ukrainian drone forces have the greatest success destroying Russian vehicles. And as Ukrainian forces counterattack while also reinforcing their defenses in the fields to Pokrovsk's north, the Kremlin's troops are paying the price. JL

David Axe reports in Trench Art:

Russian mechanized assaults resumed in early October, mostly around Shakhove, a few miles north of Pokrovsk. That Shakhove hasn’t yet fallen should tell you how well the new mech assaults are going for the Russians. In the span of a couple of weeks, the IFV loss rate more than tripled. That's because cities are no longer the key defensive positions they used to be. Drones make open terrain easier to defend. Ukraine's 1st Azov Corps isn't just holding the line in the fields just north of Pokrovsk, they're counterattacking. And even if the city falls, Ukraine has strong defensive lines north of it. "The Pokrovsk battle is not over. It could last additional months"

Russian regiments in Ukraine effectively stopped attacking in vehicles early this year—and, instead, sent infantry forward on foot or on motorcycles.

The shift to infantry assaults took advantage of the relatively dry weather and firm ground, prerequisites for infantry assaults—and also bought the Kremlin time to stockpile tanks and infantry fighting vehicles for the coming winter, which like all Ukrainian winters would be cold, wet and muddy. Conditions that favor vehicular assaults.

Russian mechanized assaults resumed in early October, mostly around the village of Shakhove, a few miles north of the fortress city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast. Pokrovsk anchors Ukrainian defenses between the Russian Center Group of Forces and the twin cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. Shakhove anchors Ukrainian defenses north of Pokrovsk.

That Shakhove hasn’t yet fallen should tell you how well the new mech assaults are going for the Russians. Equally telling: the tally of losses. Russia was losing very few BMP fighting vehicles … until it wasn’t. In the span of a couple of weeks, the IFV loss rate more than tripled. 

 

North of Pokrovsk, Ukraine is winning. 

 Open ground with clear sightlines and dense obstacles has proven easier to defend than sprawling cities, where Russian infiltrators exploit blind spots and gaps between Ukrainian positions.

The fall of the former mining city would open the road to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk—the last major Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk Oblast. But Ukraine's counterattacks north of the city could establish a new defensive line against the Russian Center Grouping of Forces—perhaps 150,000 strong— in open terrain where Russian mechanized assaults have already failed repeatedly.

Capturing Pokrovsk has been the Russian command's top priority for a year now. Defending it has been the Ukrainian command's top priority. But the Ukrainians always had too few troops for the task.

Now there are hundreds of Russian infiltrators in the city center—and the supply lines to the embattled Ukrainian garrison are fraying.

How urban warfare dynamics have changed

 

But Ukrainian victories north of the city should temper any dooming. Pokrovsk is likely to fall, and soon. But Ukrainian brigades may be able to establish a new and stronger defensive line north of the city.

That's because cities are no longer the key defensive positions they used to be. Drones make cities harder to defend. Drones make open terrain easier to defend.

This new tactical truism is reshaping the battlefield as Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds through its 45th month.

“Cities were once the main point of Ukrainian defensive strategy,” French analyst Clément Molin explained. Think Kyiv. Bakhmut. Avdiivka. One of which held. Two of which ultimately fell after long, bloody sieges.

For nearly four years of wider war, the Ukrainians’ impulse has been to fortify the big cities—and hold them for as long as possible. That impulse may no longer be the right one.

Why? Because Russia makes up for certain technological shortfalls by deploying a lot of infantry. Ukraine makes up for a lack of manpower by deploying a lot of drones.

“The overwhelming number of Russian soldiers and the possibility to hide easily from drones inside cities” make a drone-based urban defense “more difficult,” Molin wrote.

Put simply: the Ukrainians’ main assets now work best on open terrain; the Russians’ main assets now work best in built-up areas.

"It has become easier to defend fields or villages than large cities," French analyst Clément Molin pointed out. "Fewer soldiers are needed, the Russian infantry is quickly spotted, and the increasingly numerous obstacles (ditches, barbed wire) sometimes prevent progress."

Ukraine's northern counteroffensive gains ground

That's not mere theory. A clutch of Ukrainian brigades overseen by the 1st Azov Corps isn't just holding the line in the fields just north of Pokrovsk—they're actively counterattacking in several directions, steadily chipping away at a salient Russian infiltrators carved in the Ukrainian line back in August.

In and around the village of Shakhove on the eastern edge of the collapsing salient, the Ukrainian 33rd and 93rd Mechanized Brigades and 95th Air Assault Brigade have repulsed several Russian mechanized assaults in recent weeks.

Despite occasionally bad weather that can interfere with aerial surveillance, drones have detected the approaching Russian vehicles—and mines, drones, and artillery have blasted them from above and below.

 

Russian mechanized assaults fail in open terrain

A Russian mech assault on Saturday may have been the biggest of the current campaign. "It’s hard to count how many [vehicles] were used because of the bad weather conditions (fog)," Ukrainian drone operator Kriegsforscher wrote. "But we are sure that [there were] dozens."

 

When the Ukrainians got done with them, 16 vehicles lay immobilized and burning, Kriegsforscher reported.

Shakhove holds. Meanwhile, a few kilometers to the west, on the other side of the collapsing salient, Ukrainian forces are on the move. In the past week, they've liberated several villages, including Kucheriv Yar.

 

Inside Pokrovsk: Russian infiltration continues

That won't save Porkrovsk, however. Ukrainian positions are too few and too widely spread to block all Russian attempts to infiltrate the city from the south.

The Russians have "used inter-positional space and infiltrated small infantry groups," gradually concentrating around 200 soldiers in Pokrovsk, according to the Ukrainian general staff.

"In effect, this statement acknowledges a critical shortage of Ukrainian manpower, which prevents the establishment of a continuous defensive line," CIT observed. "The gaps between Ukrainian strongpoints—the so-called inter-positional space—are precisely the areas through which Russian troops are advancing."

The end is coming for Pokrovsk. How soon is unclear.

"I believe the Pokrovsk battle is not over," Molin wrote. "It could last additional months. Everything will depend on what the leadership will do. Leave the city or fight for it."

Fighting for it could endanger the last few troops in the garrison, who may have to beat a hasty retreat as urban positions finally—and suddenly—become untenable. An orderly retreat could reposition Ukraine's precious manpower behind a new defensive along the open ground north of Pokrovsk.

Open ground that has proved to be a killing field for attacking Russians.