To Reach The Most Important Village in Ukraine, The Russians Have To Attack Along The Same Road, Over And Over

The road south of Shakhove is a brutal kill zone for Russian vehicles

It’s not for no reason that all four major mechanized assaults Russia’s reinforced field armies have launched around the fortress city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine in the past couple of weeks have ended the same way—with a lot of burning Russian vehicles and a lot of dead Russian marines.

Yes, the unexpectedly clear weather has helped Ukrainian brigades spot the deploying Russians—and strike them with drones, artillery and air-dropped mines.

But there’s another factor. According to one French analyst, Ukrainian trenches are forcing Russian vehicles to travel along predictable routes toward their main objective: the village of Shakhove, which anchors Ukrainian defenses along the eastern corner of a chaotic 25-square-mile salient northeast of Pokrovsk.

That salient is the Russians’ best chance to capture Pokrovsk, one of the last urban strongholds between 150,000 Russians and the twin cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. If they can expand the salient to the west, the Russians could cut the supply lines threading south into Pokrovsk, eventually starving the city’s garrison.

But the geography favors the Ukrainians holding Shakhove and, by extension, containing the salient and preserving the supply lines into Pokrovsk. A network of six trench lines is key.