Desperate Special Forces Bid to Save Pokrovsk Fails as AFU Faces Unprecedented Collapse on Every Front
The situation continues getting worse and worse for Ukraine.
Major publications are increasingly reporting the cold hard facts, whether it’s the manpower crisis or the power grid collapse:
Corollary to the above Telegraph article, latest data shows that Ukraine’s desertions have skyrocketed in 2025:
In the Spectator piece above, entitled “Who Will Save the Ukrainian Troops in Pokrovsk?” the author essentially pleads for Ukrainian authorities to save the troops there, rather than let them be “slaughtered” as in past encirclements, where obstinate Ukrainian commanders refused to yield land in order to callously rob Russia of its glory for as long as possible, at the cost of many troops’ lives.
Ukraine’s military command has not always managed to hold that balance, at times allowing its troops to be encircled and slaughtered rather than ordering a timely retreat. Today, that same choice between territories and lives is being made in Pokrovsk.
The only way to avoid a massacre once a retreat is ordered is for Ukrainian soldiers to slip out in small groups through the porous front line, abandoning all heavy equipment. As in Avdiivka and, more recently, in Russia’s Kursk region, some will have to stay behind to cover the withdrawal, facing certain death or months of torture in Russian captivity.
This past week the Ukrainian Armed Forces have faced an accelerating frontline collapse the likes of which we’ve never seen before, on virtually every major front. Breakthroughs have been reported everywhere from the Zaporozhye-Dnipro line, to Pokrovsk, Konstantinovka, Seversk, Lyman, and Kupyansk.
Because this is the only real story that matters in Ukraine at the moment, we’ll jump right into it to see the scale of the Ukrainian breakdown. But first let’s review Putin’s recent words about the situation on the front, which he made when visiting recovering wounded soldiers:
Putin:
“The situation overall in the special military operation zone is developing very well for us. Your combat comrades are advancing actively on all fronts. In two places, as you know — in the cities of Kupyansk and Krasnoarmeysk — the enemy has been blocked and surrounded. By the way, I discussed this issue with the commanders of the respective troop groupings. They do not oppose allowing representatives of the media — foreign and Ukrainian journalists — into the encirclement zone so that they can enter and see with their own eyes what is happening there and verify the condition of the surrounded Ukrainian units. And so that the political leadership of Ukraine can make the appropriate decision regarding the fate of their citizens and their servicemen — just as was once done in “Azovstal.” They will have that opportunity. We are only concerned about one thing — that there are no provocations from the Ukrainian side. We are ready to cease hostilities for a certain period, for several hours — two, three, six hours — so that groups of journalists can enter these settlements, see what is happening there, talk to Ukrainian servicemen, and leave.”
Putin controversially offered a temporary ceasefire in Pokrovsk for Western journalists to see just how encircled the Ukrainian forces there actually were, a fact attested to by Julian Ropcke who mocked his own personal invitation:
Putin’s controversial call had many on the pro-Russian side up in arms, fearing the Russian leader was again showing weakness against the enemy by offering concessions. I can see both sides’ views, but in this case I think a ceasefire of only a few hours as proposed by Putin would not do much harm, but would bring major PR benefit. Plus, as always, Putin has a habit of making offers he knows will be turned down by the opposing side merely to appear the merciful and reasonable leader, to contrast himself from his opponent Zelensky.
The reason this has particular importance, however, is that Pokrovsk’s encirclement has become a major canary-in-coal-mine for the AFU’s present condition. The encirclement that Russian forces have achieved around this agglomerate appears to be the tightest they’ve ever managed around any city—if we are to believe pro-Russian maps—which is an extremely telling sign vis-a-vis the current combat capability of Ukrainian troops.
The current layout shows a mere ~2km distance between Russian lines remaining:
This is a very narrow gap through which only one or two Ukrainian soldiers can reportedly attempt to leave at a time, and by cover of fog, night, or other ‘special conditions’, at that. Shown below is precisely this being done in fog yesterday (the soldiers fatally assumed the drone to be their own):
Granted, there’s much debate as to how many Ukrainian troops are actually even left in that pocket; and as I’ve stated recently, there’s good chance it’s not many, perhaps in the hundreds or less, but no one seems to know for certain.
However, either the amount left is still significant, or there are some very important people remaining because the Ukrainian GUR decided to launch a daring “behind enemy lines” special forces helicopter operation to the tip of the encirclement, for reasons we can only speculate on for now.
The operation landed here, where the SOF operators entrenched themselves into buildings or vegetation, before—apparently—being destroyed by waiting Russian drones:
Russian MOD’s official announcement:
As stated, such a GUR suicide infiltration attempt is nearly unprecedented and represents an act of desperation commensurate with the direness of the situation. Given this attempt and Putin’s own unprecedented proposal for media to view the encirclement, we can only assume Pokrovsk’s ‘kettle’ is one of the most complete that Russian forces have ever managed thus far.
A post directly from a top Ukrainian military-linked channel:
Granted, Ukrainians did have major success in pushing Russian forces back out of the Dobropillya salient to the north, which has even aroused rumors that Gerasimov has “fired” the general of the 51st Army responsible for that quadrant, due to this very failure. But the actions here were designed to take pressure off Pokrovsk and this did not seem to work out for the AFU.
By far the biggest AFU collapse continues to occur on the Yanchur river line, where the chain of settlements there we’ve been covering for weeks has finally been almost entirely rolled up:
Note in particular to the north, where Russian forces are already entering Danylovka and have captured a portion of it. This town presides over the key T0401 highway that supplies Gulyaipole to the south, and its capture will mean the complication of logistics for Gulyaipole, which is already starting to become besieged from three sides in terms of main supply routes.
What’s more is that Russian forces have captured a huge swath of territory directly north of this area to fatten up the flanks and begin assaulting toward the other Pokrovske, seen just northwest of the line:
Just northeast of there, Russian forces have already begun entering and capturing Novopavlovka, which itself had been slowly surrounded over the past few weeks:
Wider view:
For those who aren’t following closely, in the wide view above you can see Pokrovsk to the northeast, and the Yanchur line to the southwest.
So, what does this mean? It adds another larger settlement that Russian forces will likely capture soon, along with Pokrovsk, Kupyansk, and many others beginning to fall.
To the north, Russian forces have begun to storm the southern tips of Seversk, which means this key town, too, stands to finally cross over in the near-term future:
Even larger advances have occurred just northwest of there in Krasny Lyman, where Russian forces are now storming the south of the town, having captured a sizable section of it already:
What’s even more shocking is how rapidly Russian forces are advancing on the northern flank of this front, where they have pushed deep into the forests there towards the Seversky Donets river:
In fact, this already puts them within artillery range of Izyum:
Lastly, Kupyansk has now seen major advances again. Russian forces have crossed the river from the west and are also storming down from the north to capture the last section on the left or eastern bank:
A closer view shows the northernmost zone on the east bank being stormed:
Also, on the first wider map above you can see Russian forces have already stormed down the western side to take Sadove, which is increasingly putting the entire Kupyansk zone into a total cauldron:
So, what do we have?
Pokrovsk and Mirnograd both set to soon fall. Kupyansk set to fall; Seversk, Krasny Lyman, Novopavlovka, and Konstantinovka all being stormed and likely to fall next, with Gulyaipole and others then to become besieged.
Russia had at one point averaged only one major city capture per year (Mariupol ‘22, Bakhmut ‘23, Avdeevka ‘24). Now, Russian forces stand to topple a whole host of cities in rapid succession. Likewise, Ukraine has launched a major ‘counter-offensive’ each year since the start of the war: there was Kherson and Kharkov in ‘22, the ‘grand’ Zaporozhye one in ‘23, and Kursk in ‘24. This year of 2025 has been the first without a major Ukrainian counter-offensive.
These two opposing facts above tell a story: The AFU is a spent force and Russian advances are accelerating drastically.
At the same time, Russia’s strikes on Ukraine’s power grid have been the most determined they’ve ever been, with many noting ‘unusual’ behavior such as doing double-taps on repair crews and launching giant drone swarms on each facility, rather than simply one or two missiles. Several Ukrainian officials have already called for people to abandon Kiev as they warn it will be without heating for major parts of the coming winter.
Ukraine’s main energy authority Ukrenergo:
Some Ukrainian MPs are even urging for an energy truce:
A Ukrainian commentator summarizes things—in particular pay attention to the last paragraph:
Roman Ponomarenko writes on TG:
“A pessimistic post, but it is what it is. Given the current configuration of the war we are witnessing, its end will clearly not be in our favor. No one talks about the 1991 borders anymore, and President Zelensky has repeatedly mentioned his readiness to stop hostilities at the line of contact. And although he constantly emphasizes that Ukraine will not give up a single piece of its territory, the practical implementation of this intention looks uncertain. We cannot currently regain them by military means. And hoping that Russia will voluntarily give up the lands incorporated into its constitution is futile – by doing so, Putin would not only delegitimize himself as the Russian leader but also sign his own death warrant.
The security guarantees that Zelensky so desperately seeks look like a blatant chimera in today’s world. Neither the USA, nor Europe, nor NATO will fight for us, neither now nor in 5-10-15 years. The only thing we can count on is a direct conflict between NATO or Europe and Russia, but only after our war ends. Considering that currently neither the USA nor the EU find the collapse of Russia beneficial or necessary, I am not confident that Europe will actively fight even for itself. More likely, they will try to buy off the conflict, either with money or territory. It is no coincidence that in the Baltic countries there is currently no confidence that NATO will fight for them even in the case of direct Russian aggression.
Therefore, after the war, we will have territorial losses and a Putin-led Russia on our borders, emboldened by victory and imperial grandeur. It will dictate its demands to us on the foreign policy arena and interfere in internal politics through elections at all levels. Considering that Ukrainians are very good at quarreling among themselves, this will not be difficult for the enemy to achieve. As an example, look at present-day Georgia, which 15 years ago was categorically anti-Russian.
And the main question – can Ukraine win and guarantee itself a safe future for at least a few decades? Theoretically, yes. For this, we need internal destabilization in Russia and a change of the ruling regime there. This is possible with a comprehensive approach from our side (some of which is already being implemented – more Russians than Ukrainian soldiers are dying on the front, and strikes on refineries have triggered a gasoline crisis in many regions of Russia; some work still needs to be done – fomenting internal confrontation in Russia, such as between the indigenous population and migrants, etc.). However, our efforts alone are not enough. Western partners of Ukraine must also contribute. Are they ready to take risks, given that they do not want the collapse of Russia? A rhetorical question, if anything.”
The most revealing fact about Russia’s sudden breakthroughs on every front is that these do not appear to be coming at the expense of major mechanized assaults with huge losses as some of Russia’s previous official ‘offensives’ had done. Sure, there have been a string of mechanized assaults we’ve covered in the past couple weeks, but these have mostly come at secondary fronts; for instance, western Zaporozhye, around Orekhove, in Shakhove, north of Pokrovsk, etc.
The main fronts discussed earlier all seem to be collapsing to the same old trickle and ‘thousand cuts’ tactics. Most importantly what this means is that Russia does not appear to be paying an exorbitant cost in casualties and equipment for these recent successes, other than expendables like bikes, civilian cars, bukhankas, etc.
If this is truly the case, this bodes extremely badly for the AFU. It would mean a point of no return has been reached where Russia no longer has to expend outsize resources for these accumulating breakthroughs, which means they will only continue unabated.
We don’t know for certain if this is the case; for instance, the fact that this sudden collapse of the AFU has corresponded precisely to the advent of rasputitsa and other inclement winter-like conditions could mean this has more to do with Russia’s recent surge. But as I’ve stated many times before, Russia has always had its biggest campaigns during the winter, wherein the Bakhmut and Avdeevka operations were carried out.
Also, in many previous campaigns Russian forces would push heavily from the onset, then exhaust themselves via a combination of losses and arrival of Ukrainian reserves; see: the Sumy campaign, Volchansk in Kharkov, etc. But in this case, the AFU really seems to be breaking en masse for the first time such that it’s hard to see Russian forces coming to an exhausted halt along the entire front from this point forward—there are simply too many areas where Ukraine no longer has the manpower to properly defend.
Some have even noted other interesting peculiarities of Russia’s recent successes—that they are capturing major settlements without razing them to the ground, as was the case long ago with everything from Avdeevka to Bakhmut to even small ones like Marinka:
One of the things I noticed about the battle of Pokrovsk is that unlike earlier in the war, the Russians haven’t obliterated the town. There seems to be significantly less use of heavy munitions. There are probably various reasons for this. Two come to mind. Precision strikes with drones have probably to some degree replaced the need for heavy munitions. Secondly, AFU manpower issues may mean that it is no longer necessary.
This appears to have more to do with the fact that Ukrainian forces are so thinned out they are no longer even capable of holding the towns long enough for Russians to level everything to the ground. The AFU begin to retreat even against direct orders, and Russia’s overwhelming troop count simply sweeps them out from every side.
How is it possible to be outnumbered by your opponent by that amount when you’re inflicting an alleged 10:1 casualties on him?
One thing to remember is that as the AFU’s collapse rolls on, it can only accelerate by nature of the fact that there are smaller and smaller time intervals allowing Ukraine to build proper defensive lines at the appropriate distance behind each collapsing front or Russian breakthrough. This is why I’ve said for a long time that the collapse can only go parabolic at some point, rather than remaining linear in intensity.
The only thing that can slow it at this point is probably a major new mobilization by Ukraine, whether down to the 18-year old cohort, or women as well. But, one: that could mean Zelensky’s political suicide; and two: even if the mobilization were to begin now, it would take half a year or more before real effects were even seen.
—
We’ll leave off with these thoughts from a Russian military analyst on the coming months of drone developments:
Your support is invaluable. If you enjoyed the read, I would greatly appreciate if you subscribed to a monthly/yearly pledge to support my work, so that I may continue providing you with detailed, incisive reports like this one.
Alternatively, you can tip here: buymeacoffee.com/Simplicius
Impossible now for the “attrition sceptics” to get their heads above barricades at this point.
Ukro collapse is, as stated in the article, going from linear to parabolic , with a steepening curve. “Things collapse slowly, then all at once” will doubtless prove true yet again.
No one willing to say roughly when yet though (except Macgregor who says next month as he has every month for the last several years).
Looking forward to GM’s usual flatulent commentary on Russia and Putin’s ongoing abject failure - must be having an afternoon snooze on the Ukrainian Riviera (aka Bali).
Brilliant and exhaustive analysis as usual. Thank you.