Every Time a Russian Soldier Breaks Cover Near Pokrovsk, 5 Ukrainian Drones Attack

There are so many drones in the air that they clog the radio channels

Russian infantry around Pokrovsk are stretched thin, exhausted and—if one Ukrainian drone team’s assessment is accurate—hugely outnumbered by Ukrainian first-person-view drones.

The shifting balance of power—away from the Russian field armies and toward the reinforced Ukrainian brigades in and around Pokrovsk—is good news for Ukraine as the yearlong battle for the eastern fortress city ebbs.

Even the most optimistic Ukrainian troops described Pokrovsk’s fall as “just a matter of time” as a clutch of Russian field armies massed 110,000 troops in the sector this summer, at times outnumbering the Ukrainians three to one.

But Ukraine’s local drone superiority, and Ukrainian counterattacks targeting the over-extended 51st Combined Arms Army in recent weeks, may delay the inevitable—and exact an even greater toll on the attacking Russians before the surviving attackers finally march into Pokrovsk.

The Ukrainian Peaky Blinders drone team, which has been deployed around Pokrovsk “for some time,” according to the team, has noted the decline in Russian combat power in the sector.