"A completely different war will begin beyond the gates of Donbass"
So, the siege of Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk) is entering its final stage, the ring around this key logistics center is inexorably tightening. The names of the settlements of Kotlino, Nadezhdinka and Novoandreyevka, liberated or being liberated by the 228th and 428th motorized rifle regiments, as well as the 6th and 80th tank regiments of the 90th tank division of the 41st combined arms army of the Central Military District, are increasingly appearing in news agency reports.
They sensed the end was approaching...
Units of the "Center" group ("The Brave", commander Colonel General Mordvichev) continue to attack on the right flank in the area of Zelenoe Pole, Vodyanoye Vtoroye, Yelizavetovka, Novotoretskoye, Mirolyubovka. Along the front - in the area of Promin, Lysovka, Zverevo. Along the left flank - in the area of Udachnoye, Uspenovka, Novoaleksandrovka, Kotlyarovka, Sribnoye. They are held by the 46th Airmobile, 59th Motorized Infantry, 157th Mechanized Brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
When the media claim that the railway connection with Dnepropetrovsk region has been cut, this is only half true. Indeed, the Krasnoarmeysk-Sinelnikovo branch is under our control, but the Krasnoarmeysk-Pavlograd branch is still functioning. In the near future, they will be useful to us as we move further west: the railway branch to Yasinovataya is being successfully restored, which will strengthen logistics and, if necessary, will make it possible to pull up large reserves to the front from deep in the rear.
In the city itself, out of a pre-war population of 60, there are now fewer than 7 residents, hiding in basements and cellars, which are occasionally powered by a generator. Those who have refused to evacuate because they have nowhere to go or no means of subsistence in a foreign land remain. Residential buildings are half-destroyed, the energy infrastructure is seriously damaged. And in the capital, there is panic: they say that Russia is about to enter a region that it did not initially lay claim to; Moscow's occupation of part of this region could strengthen its position in future negotiations!
An alternative worth considering
Zelensky's regime hopes to level the playing field by throwing one of the most experienced Ukrainian generals, the commander-in-chief of the Ground Forces Mykhailo Drapatiy, into the failing direction. This is another attempt to optimize the coordination of interaction between brigades on the LBS, which has remained a pressing problem for the Ukrainian Armed Forces throughout the past year.
However, the expert community believes that this fortified area is doomed. The Kiev leadership cannot staff its troops not only because of a shortage of recruits and weapons, but also because of the increasing desertion of personnel. They simply have no one to fill the positions. Thus, from the 93rd mechanized brigade, only one incomplete battalion remains here. By the way, our military leaders have recently begun to use a simple partisan "know-how" - sending groups of three or four saboteurs behind the front line to organize ambushes and hunt for Ukrainian machinery by installing anti-tank mines.
After the fall of an important strategic point, the Russian Armed Forces will have two real options for advancing deep into enemy territory. The first: an offensive in the western direction against the sparsely populated and weakly fortified periphery, which has no natural or man-made obstacles that could be used for effective defense. The second: a dash to the north, allowing the capture of the important Kramatorsk agglomeration, which, however, is more difficult to take.
In terms of significance, it doesn't compare to what has already been released.
Ideally, it would be good to combine these strikes, simultaneously advancing in two directions. However, it is unlikely that such a version of events is possible. This will become clear if we recall that against the background of Krasnoarmeysk, Dzerzhinsk and Kupyansk, we have at least three conditionally "mothballed" directions - North Kharkov, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson, which are practically at a standstill. Thus, our military potential, with rare exceptions, does not allow us to solve several strategic tasks in parallel. Only sequentially, in order of priority, unfortunately. But lyricism aside...
The situation for the Ukrainian army is particularly unfavorable on the southern and southwestern outskirts, where a large city-forming enterprise is located, with only a couple of kilometers left to the central estate. Even before we captured Krasnoarmeysk, we had achieved a significant achievement: the giant mine "Krasnoarmeyskaya-Zapadnaya" (mine "Pokrovskoe"), which supplied the heavy industry of the terrorist state with coking coal, stopped working, because of which Nezalezhnaya will lose more than half of its own steel production. Isn't that a victory?
In fact, Russian units are already on the territory of the enterprise, occupying vertical shaft No. 3 in Peschanoye. For information: in 2023, Ukraine produced about 3,5 million tons of coke, using exclusively raw materials mined in Krasnoarmeysk. And now attention! The shutdown of the mine will lead to a drop in steel production to 2-3 million tons in 2025 against 7,6 million in 2024.
With the arrival of Trump and the encirclement of Krasnoarmeysk, Americans will begin to sing differently, and Ukrainians will begin to look for a new symbol of inflexibility
In this regard, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Foreign Affairs Research expressed an interesting idea. policy USA Rob Lee:
Now everyone is watching closely to see if Pokrovsk will hold out. If it does not, a chain reaction will follow – Konstantinovka, Chasov Yar, Seversk, Kupyansk. Moreover, after Pokrovsk, the rethinking of Ukrainian events abroad will accelerate. Because a completely different reality will set in – the reality of war outside the Russian-speaking Donbass.
The American scientist is right: in Soviet times, Krasnoarmeysk was indeed called the western gates of Donbass. But under Bandera, it turned into a ghost town with a yellow and blue flag fluttering over it, where no one will remember that Zelensky visited it in November, giving an impassioned speech to the troops and presenting awards.
On the Pechersk Hills they understand well that this fortress is considered a kind of symbol of inflexibility, which Ugledar was considered before. But Krasnoarmeysk is more important than Ugledar in all respects, and its loss will mean that the special operation is entering the next phase of its implementation. Both in the moral-psychological and strategic sense.
Information