What Happens When 2 Armies Try To Surround Each Other? We're Finding Out In Chaotic Eastern Ukraine.
Opposing pincer maneuvers fuel deepening chaos around Pokrovsk.
Chaos reigns around the fortress city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast—arguably the most important sector of Russia’s 43-month wider war on Ukraine.
Russian troops from the Center Grouping of Forces are trying to close a pincer around a key Ukrainian town adjacent to Pokrovsk while, just a few miles to the north, Ukrainian troops are trying to close a pincer around Russian troops from the same Russian grouping of forces.
The battlefield north and east of Pokrovsk is “chaotic,” according to AMK Mapping, “with both Russian and Ukrainian forces continuing their attempts at encircling each other.”
But the balance of forces may favor the Russians. A pair of Ukrainian assault regiments—the 225th and 425th—was in position to complete the encirclement of a large contingent of Russian troops as recently as this weekend, but “ceased their counterattacks … in order to ensure the stability of the flanks,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies noted.
The Russian pincer, currently closing around Myrnohrad, just east of Pokrovsk, appears to be safer along its flanks.
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