Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) say they have “crushed an entire Russian army” near Pokrovsk, leaving Russia’s offensive potential in the area exhausted, according to media reports.
Ukraine’s military spent recent months grinding down Russian units around Pokrovsk, stripping them of striking power and depleting reserves and assault formations, according to a Ukrainian serviceman, Kirill Sazonov, who currently serves in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He announced what he called the successful completion of an operation aimed at maximally attriting Russian forces near Pokrovsk.
Sazonov said the operation was designed as a deliberate “bleeding” of the enemy. Russian troops, he claimed, are pushing into Pokrovsk with heavy losses, entering what has become a scorched landscape for them and paying for every meter with lives. He stressed that Russia’s offensive potential on this axis has been fully spent.
Ukrainian units used the defense of Pokrovsk to buy time to prepare new, more advantageous lines. The AFU had pre-positioned defenses on dominant heights, enabling a more effective model of defense featuring active use of artillery and strike drones.
At the peak of the assaults, Sazonov noted, between seven and ten Russian assault troops were attacking for every one Ukrainian defender-an indication, he said, of the cost Russia was willing to pay to try to break through.
