Sacrificing a Legendary Leopard 2A4 Tank, Ukraine Is Turning the Tide in Pokrovsk

The besieged city is now 'a difficult objective' for Russia

Russian first-person-view drones finally hunted down and disabled an internet-famous Ukrainian Leopard 2A4 tank that had been ruthlessly hunting down and blasting Russian infiltrators in the fortress city of Pokrovsk, in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. (See the tank in action in the video above, and taking hits in the video below.)

But that tank and its four crew from the Ukrainian army’s 155th Mechanized Brigade did their job. “So far, Ukraine’s stabilization measures around Pokrovsk look broadly promising,” wrote Tatarigami, the founder of the Ukrainian Frontelligence Insight.

After finally conquering the ruins of Avdiivka just north of Russian-occupied Donetsk city in February 2024, a clutch of Russian field armies ground west, trading bodies and equipment for every yard it advanced.

Eighteen months and tens of thousands of casualties later, the Russians had marched the 25 miles to Pokrovsk: the last urban stronghold between the 110,000 Russians in the sector and the main Ukrainian defensive line threading through Kramatorsk to Slovyansk.

It was always the Kremlin’s goal to capture Pokrovsk, a mining town with a pre-war population of 60,000, before the coming muddy season complicates offensive action. That goal is slipping away. “With only days left before the fall season, the chances of Russia taking Pokrovsk by summer’s end are virtually nil,” Tatarigami wrote.

It’s clear what went wrong. The Russians pushed too hard in the wrong places—and despite being outnumbered three to one, the Ukrainians countered with a flexible, mobile defense. “Russia way over-extended,” noted American analyst Andrew Perpetua.