The battle for Pokrovsk is intense, but inside the city itself, “there are only shadows.” Russian war correspondent Alexander Kharchenko, in a posting on his Telegram channel, provides a view of the battle which is totally at odds with the images presented in video games, Hollywood films or even real wars that people might be familiar with, such as the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
At the start, he notes that Ukraine’s acting president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told reporters in Kiev on Nov. 7 that there are only 314 Russian troops inside the city, a slight increase from the 200 he claimed at the end of October. “No, the Russian army has not been ground down by the Ukrainian defense,” Kharchenko writes. “Tens of thousands of Russian soldiers are operating near Pokrovsk.” Yet, “if you look at Pokrovsk through a drone camera, you will hardly notice any soldiers.”
“Both sides keep their main forces 10 km from the city,” Kharchenko explains. “Drones control all approaches, and only the most desperate daredevils can get through this barrier alive. So it turns out that inside Pokrovsk only the shadows of two armies fighting on its outskirts are clashing. Zelenskyy clearly underestimates the Russian forces, but you will no longer see assaults in the style of Bakhmut. There are fewer soldiers in the city than civilians. Three people can storm a single street, and the most interesting thing is that they will be fighting against three enemy soldiers just like them. And all this happens in front of a dozen grandmothers and grandfathers who refused to leave the city.”
