Slow but steady Russian advances have nearly closed a pincer around three Ukrainian brigades. Is Ukraine’s urban defense strategy obsolete?
31/10/2025
A Ukrainian soldier. Ukrainian General Staff photo.
- Three Ukrainian brigades are nearly surrounded in a pocket around the city of Pokrovsk
- It’s too late for an orderly retreat
- Ukrainian commanders continue to prioritize urban defense, but they lack the troops
- Drones are abundant, but they work best over open terrain
Ukrainian troops are dangerously close to being surrounded in the 30-square-kilometer pocket stretching from Pokrovsk east to Myrnohrad. The open end of the pocket, the only escape route for some or all of no fewer than three Ukrainian brigades—the 25th Air Assault Brigade, the 38th Marine Brigade and the 155th Mechanized Brigade—is barely 10 km across.
Commanders have yet to order the garrisons in Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad to withdraw north to the next line of Ukrainian defenses.
In any event, it’s probably too late for a safe and orderly retreat. Russian drones and artillery can range across the only roads and footpaths out of the Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad pocket. If there’s any reason to hope for anything short of a catastrophic withdrawal, it’s that the front line in Ukraine isn’t really a line anymore—it’s a porous zone of contested control.
Maybe all those Ukrainian paratroopers, marines, and mechanized troops can slip out of the pocket the same way Russian troops have been slipping into it—on foot in small groups, at night. But it’s risky. And the retreating Ukrainians may leave behind a lot of heavy equipment.
Serhii Sternenko—founder of the Sternenko Fund, which equips Ukrainian forces with drones—surely spoke for many Ukrainians when he voiced his frustration.
Citing chaotic and costly Ukrainian retreats from Avdiivka, Vuhledar, and Sudzha, he asked how yet another Ukrainian force could find itself “in a fire sack.”
“Every time, our forces withdrew at the last moment with heavy losses, abandoning property and equipment,” Sternenko wrote. “Not everyone could get out. Some remained in their positions forever. This is happening again right now.”
How this happened is clear to see. A powerful Russian force with more than 100,000 troops and hundreds of armored vehicles has been marching on Pokrovsk for more than a year since capturing the ruins of Avdiivka, 40 km to the southeast.
Bloody march
The Ukrainian armed forces bled the Russians for every kilometer they advanced, but the main defensive line was anchored by Pokrovsk itself. That was consistent with Ukraine’s urban defense strategy. For nearly four years since Russia widened its war on Ukraine, Ukrainian commanders have fortified cities at the expense of the countryside.
That used to make sense. Built-up urban areas can hide and protect infantry fighting on the defensive, helping them repel enemy assaults.
The problem, in 2025, is that Ukraine is desperately short of trained infantry.
“To put it as bluntly as possible: Ukraine has fallen short by at least 10,000 recruits per month over the past two years,” Ukraine Control Map explained.
“We don’t lack the will to fight,” wrote Ryan O’Leary, the former commander of the now-shuttered Chosen Company, a volunteer unit that fought in Ukraine. “We lack the infantry to hold the ground so we can continue fighting.”
Ukraine compensates with a large force of tiny explosive drones. But the drones are most effective on open terrain where there’s nowhere for their prey to hide.
They’re least effective over cities, where their prey has everywhere to hide. If Russian troops can slip through the many wide gaps in Ukrainian defenses, they can accumulate in small but growing numbers inside a city like Pokrovsk.
There, the “overwhelming number of Russian soldiers and the possibility to hide easily from drones inside cities” make a drone-based urban defense “more difficult,” French analyst Clément Molin explained. The drones can’t find or hit all the Russians in their basement hideouts. And there are too few Ukrainian infantry to clear out the Russian infiltrators the old-fashioned way: with direct close combat.
Since arriving at the gates of Pokrovsk and nearby Myrnohrad late last year, the Russians have been slowly but steadily creeping into both cities in small groups. Today, there are around 250 Russian infantry inside Pokrovsk. That might not seem like a lot, but it’s enough to create a lodgement for follow-on forces.
Meanwhile, Russian assaults northeast of Myrnohrad and northwest of Pokrovsk have partially closed a pincer around the twin cities, nearly bottling up the Ukrainians in the settlements. “The enemy cut off our logistics,” Sternenko pointed out. Aerial resupply via drone is still possible, but drone resupply can’t fully replace ground resupply, which is much more efficient.
There may have been an opportunity for Ukrainian troops to safely leave Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad. But it was weeks ago. And it required Ukrainian commanders to understand that their most abundant forces—small drones—work best over open terrain.
The old urban defense model may be obsolete.
………….
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https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/10/21/russian-infiltrators/
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All is not yet lost. But it’s increasingly looking that way. Denny Davydov and other pundits have been predicting this for months.
What we have is the beginning of another humanitarian crisis. It is impossible to know which civilians still trapped are “waiters” ; ie Soviet-type cuntz who want putler rule, or stubborn Ukrainians refusing to give up their homes.
I could not give a monkey’s wank about the first category, but the second should have our full support.
A brigade of heavily-armed mechanised troops from one of the stronger western powers could have headed off these scum off long ago.
Now the defenders will have few options. Once it’s swamped with filth, perhaps they could use swarms of thermite drones to incinerate the bastards?
This is a repeat of Soledar, Bahmut and many others.
Once putinaZis have taken land, they will never give it up; unless they are driven out by force.
The “freezing the lines” proposal by Finland and apparently backed by pro-Ukraine countries in Europe is an absolute sack of shit. Helps no one except putler, who will be feeling energized by the success of his meat wave assaults. Do you think he gives a fuck about losing a few thousand orcs to take this one city? The cokksukka will be crowing about it; he would have cheerfully lost 150,000 vermin to take it.
It’s so terrible that the piss poor help that Ukraine gets has forced this situation.
Manpower : lack of.
Firepower: lack of.
In order to retake and hold land Ukraine needs one million more troops. I’d estimate a cost of $40 billion for that, plus retention.
It’d have to come from the $200 billion of putinaZi cash. The rest would need to be spent on killing orcs: long range fires, artillery, thermite drones, cluster munitions etc…
Flamingos and Rutas are on the way. They will make a difference. But when they will be pulverizing Muskovy and putlergrad in big numbers is not known.