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The Summer offensive From Russia in eastern Ukraine, launched in May, has been advancing on the battlefield On multiple frontsexploring and attacking with small and fast units as the fighting intensifies day by day. With his advance, Russia has changed The rhythm of warcapturing more and more square kilometers. However, for many months, one of the bloodiest battles has taken place in a single enclave.
Prolonged defense. For months, the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk became one of the most fierce epicenters of the war, where kyiv’s forces managed to stop a numerically superior enemy thanks to intensive use of armed drones and staggered defenses that worn thousands of Russian soldiers.
This bastion, located on important reserves of coquizable coal and that worked as a key point of the supply lines to the east, has been subject to a constant siege since last year, first through frontal attacks and then through Fence attempts.
Fiber as a disruptive. Although the Ukrainian resistance managed to stop these advances, Russia has gone adapting their tactics with greater deployment of drones, finally including the models than We have been talking In recent months: those Drones with optical fiber Impossible to block with electronic warfare systems, capable of achieving objectives up to 25 kilometers after the front line.
Human and logistics cost. The price of this slow offensive has been devastating for Moscow: tens of thousands of casualties accumulate around Pokrovsk, with soldiers sent in Precarious conditionssome recruited in criminal colonies with just a week of training, other wounded or poorly equipped. Many were released in almost suicidal wavesadvancing on foot or motorcycles to avoid drone detection, in groups of just half a dozen, replaced again and again after each failure.
Russian prisoners They reported that the greatest fear in the battlefield were not tanks or artillery, but Small Ukrainian quadricopters that bombarded from the air without rest, generating psychological terror and nightmares between the troops. kyiv, meanwhile, He suffered the pressure Of a hostile environment, with supply routes subjected to the fire of drones and artillery, which forced to cover roads with protection networks and to face increasing difficulties to supply food and food to the few civilians who remain in the city.
Russian adaptation. Underlined a report Reuters that Ukrainian resistance, organized with the experience of units such as called “Da Vinci Wolves” And under the command of General Mykhaylo Drapatyi, he managed to maintain the line during more than a yearapplying counterattacks and hindering enemy logistics. However, Russian numerical superiority, key road control and the introduction of new technologies began to Tilt the balance.
The calls “Kill Zone drones” They cover kilometers on each side of the front, making reinforcements and supplies on both sides. Russian advances, although limited in territory, accelerated in The spring of 2025with the greatest Ukrainian territorial losses of the year concentrated in this sector. Pokrovsk’s partial fall, although symbolically minimized by Zelenski, could release Russian military resources and open the door to greater progress in Donbás, approaching Putin to one of its fundamental objectives.
Strategic implications. Background, Pokrovsk represents the paradigm of the wear war that today defines the conflict: minimum territorial advances achieved to a exorbitant human costwith drone technology as a decisive factor on the battlefield. For Ukraine, its resistance has been a crucial brake that prevented Russia from consolidating control, Especially Donetskbut the price has been the almost total destruction of the city and the loss of its logistics function.
For Russia, the eventual conquest of Pokrovsk would serve to reinforce its control over the eastalthough he has succeeded by sacrificing thousands of soldiers, many of them poorly trained and equipped.
If you want, the battle illustrates the transformation of modern combat, where the troops are trapped in a new war era defined by drone swarms, electronic war and mass attacks that make each meter live in a victory … with very little to celebrate.
Image | US Air Force
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