"Since the Kursk operation, I haven't noticed any changes."

"The Russians have the same tactics of infantry assaults: They are moving, advancing."

"Russians are destroying and moving, destroying and moving."

Aerial Reconnaissance soldier with Ukraine's 68th Brigade

 

"[Russian troops are] advancing at a fast pace."

"With every passing day there is less and less time to collect personal belongings and leave for safer regions."

Pokrovsk officials

A heavily damaged university building in Pokrovsk after a Russian attack   Roman Pilipey/AFP/Getty Images

Civilians in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk were urged to speed up their evacuation by military authorities, in view of the Russian army closing in on one of Moscow's key targets. By launching a bold cross-border incursion into Russia's Kursk region, Ukrainian troops have attempted to divert the Russian military focus away from the front lines in Ukraine. Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Pokrovsk and other towns nearby in the Donetsk region were "facing the most intense Russian assaults".

From his position, where he flies a drone to identify moving Russian infantry, an Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance soldier explained that the same deadly monotony occurs each day. Once he relays the co-ordinates, the boom of a mortar follows. After which greater numbers of Russian infantrymen arrive in a seemingly endless wave. With its powerful aerial bombs, he added, Russian was destroying any hope of holding the territory for Ukrainians.

Symbolic of the high-stakes gamble Ukraine is playing through taking the war into Russia with its ongoing Kursk assault, the urgency of the evacuation of civilians from Pokrovsk underscores the issue. The possibility that the effort to change the dynamic of the conflict could backfire, leaving Ukraine's defence on the front line, short handed as it is, at the mercy of Russia's advance. Battlefield momentum and superior forces in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region since the spring favours the Kremlin's forces.

For Ukraine, the possibility that it is able to cope with the strain on its resources involved in the Kursk attack without sacrificing Donetsk, motivates their bold, courageous move to distract the enemy. Russia, on the other hand appears to have concluded that it is able to contain the incursion without diverting troops in Donetsk, sending some to bolster Kursk."Both cannot be right. The outcome hangs in the balance", suggested Nigel Gould-Davies, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

In terms of troops and armour, Russia's slow advance across Donetsk this yer has been costly, yet its gains have been realized. With a prewar population of around 60000, Pokrovsk is a main defensive stronghold and a key logistics hub for Ukraine in the Donetsk region. Ukraine's defensive abilities and supply routes would be compromised by its capture. Just as Russia would be brought closer to its aim of capturing the Donetsk region in its entirety.

"As the front line approaches Pokrovsk, the need to move to a safer place is becoming increasingly urgent", the local Pokrovsk administration informs its residents, providing them with logistical details on the evacuation, with western Ukraine offering the evacuees shelter. Ukrainian troops in the meantime, have taken full control of Sudzha in Kursk, the largest Russian town to fall to the Ukrainian forces since the start of the incursion. 

 

Ukrainian spirits have been raised by this success, while embarrassing the Kremlin.

Civilians wait to board a train leaving Pokrovsk  Thomas Peter/Reuters