The Last Leopard 2 Tanks in Pokrovsk Can't Save the Beseiged City
Russian troops are slowly surrounding the Ukrainian garrison
After a year of hard fighting, Russian troops are finally closing a pincer around the fortress city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast—while also infiltrating the city’s ruins with at least one small team of saboteurs.
Pokrovsk’s Ukrainian garrison—eight or so brigades plus some supporting battalions together with around 20,000 troops—has held against several Russian fields armies with 100,000 troops. The garrison has had help from a small number of up-armored Leopard 2A4 tanks operated by the bad-luck 155th Mechanized Brigade.
The year-old brigade, initially suffering from catastrophically bad leadership, practically disintegrated through desertion as it arrived in Pokrovsk late last year. The 155th Mechanized Brigade has had to reorganize and reform while also holding some of the most tenuous positions on the 700-mile front line of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine.
Several of the 69-ton, four-person Leopard 2A4s in and around Pokrovsk have taken hits from the tiny explosive drones that are everywhere along both sides of the front line as the wider war on Ukraine grinds into its 42nd month. But one of the German-made tanks appeared on camera in or near Pokrovsk as recently as this week. (See video above.)
If that tank crew hasn’t yet evacuated, it may do so soon. Apparently exploiting a desperate infantry shortage in the Ukrainian National Guard’s Chervona Kalyna Brigade, the Russian 9th Motor Rifle Brigade has pushed to within three miles of the T0515 road threading south into Pokrovsk. And the Russians have long been within three miles of the E50 road winding into Pokrovsk from the west.
No Ukrainian vehicles are safe. “Every trip in and out of this fortress city in Donetsk Oblast is a roll of the dice with death,” Kyiv Independent’s Francis Farrell wrote during his last visit to Pokrosk last week. “There are ways of reducing the risk of a strike from above”—anti-drone nets and jamming, to name two—“but none are foolproof in the war of summer 2025.”
Time to leave
A few tanks can’t save Pokrovsk—not as long as the Russians enjoy a massive manpower advantage and the Ukrainians continue to believe, correctly in the view of many, that containing the Russian incursion into Sumy Oblast in the north is more important than hanging onto Pokrovsk. Especially as the Ukrainians have already exacted an enormous toll on the Russians attacking the city.
Sumy is existential. “If [the] Sumy area were to fall, or if Russian forces pushed deep enough, it could open the way for an advance into Chernihiv Oblast,” explained Tatarigami, the founder of the Frontelligence Insight analysis group. “That would put Kyiv under direct threat and force Ukraine to redeploy troops north, weakening other parts of the front.”
“And at that point, the conversation—both political and military—would shift.” Ukraine’s leaders would have to explain to their allies why they let the Russians march on the seat of power in Ukraine. “This would be disastrous for Ukraine,” Tatarigami explained.
Better to lose the ruins of Pokrovsk than give the Russians a shot at Kyiv, however long that shot might be.
Which is not to say Pokrovsk isn’t important. It’s a major eastern rail hub, for one. “The significance of Pokrovsk extends beyond its rail connections; the town is also situated at an important road juncture, playing a similar role to the railroads in the transportation and distribution of supplies across the entire frontline,” Frontelligence Insight assessed.
“If Pokrovsk falls, Russian forces would face minimal obstacles in advancing toward Dnipro, potentially extending their control into another administrative region of Ukraine and broadening the list of occupied oblasts,” the analysis group added.
But falling back from Pokrovsk is the less bad choice for manpower-starved Ukrainian troops if the alternative is falling back in Sumy. And with a manpower deficit of around 100,000 troops—specifically in trained infantry—Ukrainian commanders have no choice but to identify the least bad concessions.
What’s galling to friends of a free Ukraine is that there should be enough men in Ukraine. But Ukraine can’t afford to simply pay people to enlist the way Russia can afford to do for now—and Ukraine’s leaders struggle to inspire the confidence that might compel more men to volunteer regardless of a paucity of cash bonuses.
“People act like Ukraine’s out of men,” said Andrew Perpetua, an independent analyst in the United States. “Ukraine’s not out of men. It’s a lack of trust. They’re not doing the things to build trust back. People don’t want to feel like they’re joining a, like, a hopeless thing. They want to feel like it has a purpose.”
A prompt evacuation from what’s left of Pokrovsk, one that saves Ukrainian lives and preserves Leopard 2 tanks, could be one way to rebuild everyday Ukrainian troops’ admittedly meager trust in their commanders.
But to save the next fortress city, Ukraine must find some way to build on greater trust—and mobilize tens of thousands of fresh infantry.
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