The Battlefield Around Pokrovsk Is 'A Total Mess.' And It's About To Get Worse.
How many Russians are left in their salient northeast of Pokrovsk, and where are they? No outsiders know for sure.
The fighting around the fortress city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast is so fluid and chaotic that the best outside observers—independent analysts and mappers—struggle to make sense of it.
We know a big battle is coming. Potentially “the largest battle of the entire war,” according to American analyst Andrew Perpetua. But the smaller clashes leading up to that likely battle are an ominous sign. When the final battle for Pokrovsk eventually begins, it could defy conventional understanding.
Two leading mappers—Deep State and Unit Observer—have tried to pinpoint the locations of the main Russian and Ukrainian units, as well as the geographic zones of control across a 12-km front stretching from Rodynske to Dobropillia just northeast of Pokrovsk.
Their maps don’t match. “The situation there is a total mess,” analyst Moklasen observed.
This much we know. In late July or early August, the Russian 132nd Motor Rifle Brigade slipped right past Ukrainian trenches east of Rodynske and marched on Dobropillia, which sits astride one of the two main supply lines into Pokrovsk.
Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.
