SITREP 10/27/25: Pokrovsk Reaches Its Final Arc as Russian Bulldozer Plows Ahead
In the vein of Western institutions finally coming around to realities long-known to most of us, this new Economist piece braves the humiliation of having to admit some harsh truths about Western weapons:
The piece centers on the massive disappointment that Western drones have brought with them on the Ukrainian battlefield. Read below how the West was hoodwinked into drinking its own bathwater by the so-called “success” its drones experienced in total mismatch “wars” like Iraq and Afghanistan:
AMERICAN SWITCHBLADE drones were once cutting-edge. Fast, clever and precise, they were essential kit for special forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. But when a batch of Switchblade-300s reached Ukraine in 2022, high hopes were quickly shattered. The drones were too expensive. They struggled against Russian electronic warfare. They caused minimal damage when they hit their targets. “When we tested them, they glitched under jamming conditions,” says Valery Borovyk, a military-drone developer. “When one hit the rear window of a minibus, the front windows didn’t even shatter.”
It really is a tragicomic tale.
Since then various Western companies have sought to showcase their drones on what has become the world’s best testing ground. But they have largely fallen flat.
The article only passingly mentions something quite interesting and important, which I have harped on many times in the past. That one of the reasons Western companies and ‘innovators’ in general may be refusing to fully commit to creating wonder-weapons for Ukraine is the shaky ‘long-term business case’.
When companies crunch the numbers they know that a given ROI needs to be realistic to justify the huge investment in developing a particular type of weapon—like a drone—and mass-producing it. But where’s the ROI when behind closed doors, most of these companies see the writing on the wall that Ukraine will collapse in the medium term future, and the need for their mass-produced weapon will suddenly dwindle, leading to perhaps billions in losses? This has been one of the primary concerns hampering the establishment of much larger production lines for various artillery and other systems for Ukraine throughout Europe and even the US.
Perhaps in a case of sour grapes, the Economist author underhandedly calls Russia’s superior innovations as “spam” technology, but admits it’s what’s winning the war:
Cutting edge weapons should always be in the mix. But war in Ukraine has opened a Pandora’s box of cheap, “spam” technology, and it threatens to overwhelm any military that is unprepared for it. “No one in this world understands what threats will exist tomorrow—not a single analyst, not a single general,” Says Mr Borovyk: “My advice to defence firms is if you are not deeply involved in the war in Ukraine today, you are on the road to bankruptcy tomorrow.”
The above naturally segues into a new WSJ piece which is an extension of the idea that drone innovations have perpetuated the war, which could last years ahead:
President Vladimir Putin remains convinced that Russia will eventually wear down its smaller neighbor, causing a collapse of the Ukrainian economy and society. An elusive victory would allow him to make the case that the devastating war he unleashed nearly four years ago was worth it, after all.
The article continues the standard company line about Russian advances being miniscule, and Ukraine now supposedly putting major pressure on Russia’s economy via the oil refinery strikes—something which no one has yet definitively or empirically demonstrated.
But the article does raise a few interesting points. For instance, this statement from Ben Hodges does have a veneer of truth—that Russia’s great size, once a distinct advantage, now poses a kind of strategic dilemma or disadvantage in this particular new-age conflict:
“Back in the time of the czars, or Stalin, Russia’s great strength was that it was so big that it could always just absorb invading armies,” said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. Army Europe. “Now that Ukraine has the ability to reach so deep into Russia and strike various parts of its infrastructure, that vastness has become a vulnerability.”
But there are many nuances to this. For instance, the main fact ignored is that in order to reach so deep into Russian territory, Ukrainian drones are forced to exchange warhead size for fuel tank capacity.
The drones which reach extremely deeply into the Ural zone, such as the strike on an Orenburg refinery earlier in the month, end up doing very little damage due to their small warhead size. Their main purpose appears to be a ‘psychological effect’, and the ability to merely rouse headlines sporting new “high score” counts of 1500km, 2000km+, and more into the Russian heartland. Further, since only a couple kinds of Ukrainian drones can even make it that distance—like the Lyuti—these long-range attacks are extremely limited compared to the hits on refineries much closer to the Ukrainian border; i.e. instead of a dozen or even several dozen mixed-variety drones, only two or three end up reaching these distant facilities.
The WSJ piece mentions this:
Drones, however, can carry only a limited payload, which is why Ukraine is also developing its missile program.
Unfortunately, this so-called “missile program” doesn’t really exist. Ukrainian MP Roman Kostenko had just recently explained the ‘Flamingo’ missile program has no money, has not started any kind of real production, and the missile itself has never even been tested at more than 50% of its claimed flight range.
As for the narrative of Russia’s imminent “collapse” from such refinery hits that the article seems to expect, here Budanov himself recently explained that Russia is no where near collapse and can fight indefinitely:
Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev also explained what the real result of the refinery hits and energy sanctions on Russia will be—in short, higher oil prices which will lead to Russia simply selling less oil for more, and making roughly the same bank:
Even rabid pro-UA analyst Phillips O’Brien has concluded that Trump’s new ‘sanctions’ on Russia are mostly for show. According to him, the sleight-of-hand actually resulted in the sanctioning of US companies buying Russian oil:
What was sanctioned yesterday was US firms and individuals that deal with two large Russian oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil (which together handle the flow of about half of Russian oil). Here is the US Treasury announcement. It looks pretty damn impressive—until you get to the small print. What you will see is that these sanctions are not automatically applied to foreign individuals or companies—the words used are “may result in” and “run the risk of” being sanctioned (see bold below).
The fact that Russia is destroying far more of the Ukrainian energy sector and infrastructure in general also gets only a passing mention in the WSJ piece, which concludes that Russia “tried” this already in 2022 and never achieved ‘strategic success’. Right.
But even the authors are forced to admit the prospect of any kind of collapse is not exactly realistic, more so that Russia may essentially begin to “feel some economic pain”, which means nothing in the long run:
Despite earlier predictions of a meltdown caused by sanctions and war spending, the Russian economy has remained relatively resilient—but that can’t last forever, added Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin who served as an adviser to the Russian Central Bank until 2022. “It’s not that they will run out of money. But they will no longer be able to finance the situation using traditional ways, through taxes, through surgical spending cuts. They will no longer be able to maintain the illusion that nothing significant is going on.”
The fact is, something “odd” has been going on in Russia recently. There’ve been talks about various regions finally lowering their high mobilization signing bonuses, as well as reducing military production to manage the ‘overheating’ economy:
Former Russian marine and blogger Ivan Otrakovsky writes:
“Production reduction has begun in factories belonging to Russia’s military-industrial complex. This sector has been the main driver of Russia’s economy since the start of the so-called ‘special military operation,’ thanks to trillions of rubles allocated through state orders. For the first time since then, the defense industry is facing stagnation or contraction, as confirmed by Rosstat data. This is the result of the ‘cooling policy’ of an overheated economy, implemented by the Central Bank with full support from the Russian government.”
Why are signing bonuses being reduced in many regions? The pro-UA side naturally speculates that “Russia is running out of money”. In reality, the reason is likely because Russia is comfortably hitting its quotas to such an extent that such elevated bonuses are no longer necessary.
There’s even been rumor that Russia’s monthly recruitment is so high that anywhere between 5-10k signups are turned away by enlistment offices due to lack of training capacity for them on the training grounds; if true, it could mean Russia can only adequately afford to train the current 35-40k monthly it already comfortably signs up.
I’ve previously speculated that as the SMO gets closer to its conclusion, and the hallmarks of Ukraine’s collapse become more evident, Russian recruitment will only accelerate given that patriotism and morale will ignite to a sky-high level, and thousands more per month will sign up hoping to steal glory and march on Kiev in the final moments.
The irony of the WSJ article’s concluding thoughts is that the very ‘dangers’ the authors predict for Putin’s Russia are ones being suffered in far more severe manner by major European states, particularly Germany and France:
The possible pathways will be to ramp up printing money, spurring inflation, to implement drastic welfare cuts, and to replace the current system of recruiting volunteer soldiers to fight in Ukraine with forcible mobilization, Prokopenko said. All of these steps could become triggers for unrest.
If these things didn’t trigger unrest in Europe, where civic discontent is immeasurably higher than in Russia, what makes these shills think it will trigger anything in Russia?
Well, at least they recognize the other end of the potential-outcome spectrum:
Battlefield Updates:
The most active front with the largest daily advances continues to be the Yanchur river settlement chain east of Gulyaipole. Here Russian forces again captured several of the remaining settlements. The Suriyak map below is a tad conservative compared to others which already report the full capture of Yegorovka in the north, and Pryvolne toward the center:
Presumably, they will be marked in a day or two and only a couple settlements in this chain will remain to be rolled up.
In the Zaporizhzhia region, the 60th Brigade’s assault troops liberated Privolnoye on the western bank of the Yanchur River.
Likely, Russian forces will continue past Yegorovka toward Danilovka to cut the important supply route between Gulyaipole and Pokrovske, which will put new pressure on Gulyaipole in preparation for the coming encirclement of that key town:
The main story of course continues to be Pokrovsk, where Russian forces have finally captured the key node of Rodynske, effectively cutting off all main supply routes to the entire agglomerate:
If it’s all cut off, then how are Ukrainians still not fully trapped inside the cauldron? Well, there remain backroads which can be seen by the yellow line below, as well as simply scrambling across the now-muddy fields to get out:
The key juncture seen under the red X above is where the last real road can take soldiers west, though they can still try to escape in the back alleys of the actual city itself, though it’s much less effective and under drone fire control—something like so:
But the point is, this vastly increases risks for the destruction of escaping units. The more you can funnel and canalize the enemy’s units into ever-smaller amounts of escape corridors, the more you’re able to destroy them as they are piled up and ‘concentrated’ in those last corridors. Having many different supply route options allows you to distribute your logistics so there’s only a few units coming or going on any given road at any given time. Having the entire remaining garrison canalized into one or two smaller, broken, and muddy roads translates into disaster.
There are all kinds of interpretations of the situation now, with some claiming Pokrovsk has fully been encircled with all AFU trapped, and others saying it needs at least another week or two to fall.
Ukrainians did launch a major counter-attack with newly injected special forces brigades in the Dobropillya direction in order to relieve pressure from the Pokrovsk encirclement. This has led to some loss of territory, including Nove Shakhove, for the Russians—from Suriyak:
In the end, it accomplished little of its objective, so far at least. Russian forces continue to storm both southeast and north Mirnograd, and a new salient has pushed forth into central Pokrovsk, with an estimated 70% of the town captured.
Russians also launched another large mechanized assault on the Shakhove east of the Dobropillya salient:
The enemy is publishing footage of ongoing massive mechanized assaults on the village of Shakhovo at the base of the right flank of the Dobropolye salient.
Columns of several tank-sheds with mine-clearing vehicles and BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles with infantry have moved to break through Shakhovo from the southeast. Judging by the video, this time, unlike the previous assault, most of the vehicles managed to reach the outskirts of the settlement, although several units of equipment were lost along the way due to multiple strikes by FPV drones.
Prominent Russian war correspondent Alexander Kharchenko gives an enlightening update on the situation:
About the encirclement of Pokrovsk
To understand what is happening near Pokrovsk/Krasnoarmeysk, you first need to forget all the footage from the Great Patriotic War. Those principles and that logic no longer apply in this war.
The battle for Pokrovsk resembles the Yin-Yang symbol. Both we and the enemy are trying to strangle the opponent with drone embraces. The overconcentration of “birds” leads to the isolation of the combat zone. To put it even more simply, the city is besieged by both us and the enemy.
Our fighters are in Pokrovsk, but you do not see armored columns breaking into the urban area. Small groups infiltrate the city and conduct its clearing very carefully.
I repeat once again, there are no encirclements like the Battle of Stalingrad now. Skeptics will not find footage of stormtroopers meeting north of Pokrovsk.
Yes, there are points on the map where Ukrainian military still remain. But if you talk to prisoners, everything falls into place. The defense of Pokrovsk has long since broken into small enclaves. Soldiers have been sitting for 2 months without supplies or evacuation. Read Ukrainian propagandists. In the last week, they have been whining that it is impossible to enter the city. All roads are blocked by waiting forces. Only a few break through on foot.
Do the encircled receive supplies? Yes, they do. Food and water are dropped by “Maviks” and Baba Yaga. A typical ration for two people is two packs of noodles and two cans of sprats for two days. How long will the encircled hold out? It will all depend on how we organize the destruction of the enemy’s delivery drones. The defeat of “Baba Yaga” is already being mass-produced, but still, too many of them circle over Pokrovsk even during the daytime.
If there is no longer logistics to Pokrovsk, then that is encirclement. Yes, you will not see a company of soldiers repelling an enemy tank breakthrough. But often even two people on a landing are enough. In any case, the battle for Pokrovsk is coming to an end and soon we will see Russian flags over the city.
Alexander Kharchenko
By the way, the funny thing about Pokrovsk is that the AFU officially announced that only a total of 200 Russian troops are inside the city itself, which was meant to downplay Russia’s control of it. Yet at the same time, pro-UA bloggers publish wild statistics of daily losses, amounting to perhaps 100-200 killed or more. How can that be when there’s only 200 Russians in the entire city?
In reality, it proves that Russian forces have continued to refine the new methodology of tactical advancement which minimizes necessary assault troops to seize a given city, vastly shrinking casualties in the process.
The truth is, it would seem that there are not actually even that many AFU left in the entire Pokrovsk-Mirnograd agglomeration, and most of the area is likely just a giant drone-patrolled gray zone, with only a few hundred troops on each side clearing each other out sector by sector. This is why, despite the seemingly massive encirclement, there likely won’t be a major capture or destruction of enemy units on the scale of Mariupol’s Azovstal, or something to that effect.
That being said, here’s one Russian report of the claimed amounts of AFU units inside the Pokrovsk cauldron:
According to the NGS, units of seven AFU brigades are “locked up” in Pokrovsk: 25 ovdbr, 79 odshbr, 68 oebr, 35 obrmp, 38 obrmp, 153 ombr, 155 ombr and 425 separate assault regiment - a total of 31 battalions. It is estimated that 5,500 soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are surrounded in the Pokrovsk-Mirnograd area. By the way, according to the National Guard of Ukraine, 5,000 people are surrounded in Kupyansk. There are questions about this figure.
In the report of the NGS, instead of the word environment (envelopment), “isolation” is increasingly heard - this is when it is almost impossible to evacuate the wounded and normal supplies from a conditional environment. Bringing water, cigarettes, and painkillers by drone is the minimum supply to survive.
Continuing the topic, instead of the concept of “line of contact”, it makes sense to introduce the concept of “line of contact”, since there is no ideal LBS at the front. Wherever our assault rifleman is, there is control, even if he is the only one per kilometer of the front. To everyone who knows the situation, the outcome near Pokrovsk is obvious, and the VSU garrison is in agony.
Moving on.
Russian forces have broken deeper into Konstantinovka, with the battle for that city now raging in full, likely in no different a manner from Kharchenko’s description above:
The Krasny Lyman front also continues to collapse with Russians tightening the yoke on the city:
In fact, the above is again the conservative map, with some reports having Russian forces already breaking into Lyman proper from the easternmost bulge:
A write up on Krasny Lyman from a Russian channel:
Red Liman. Successes of the Russian Armed Forces. Disaster for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. 24.10
Comrades report that the armored group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, consisting of 600 units of equipment in three mechanized brigades, has practically been encircled near Red Liman.
According to intelligence, among the potential trophies of the Russian Armed Forces are “Leopards,” “Abrams,” and “Bradleys.”
According to the fighters, after capturing the village of Stavki, our troops approached Liman from two directions.
The 53rd, 60th, 63rd mechanized brigades and the 119th Territorial Defense Brigade of Ukraine are based there.
The city itself is the most important railway hub of the Donetsk People’s Republic, through which the main supply flows of the Ukrainian Armed Forces with equipment, personnel, and ammunition pass.
It also has an asphalt concrete plant that can be used for casting fortifications.
Currently, the Ukrainian militants are trying to urgently restore bridges over the Donets River.
Earlier, they were destroyed by Russian UAVs to cut off enemy supplies.
The importance of restoring roads is also related to the recent operation to destroy Ukraine’s railway infrastructure.
It is noted that after taking Liman, Russian troops will advance directly to Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, and Druzhkivka — the key line of defense of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the north of Donetsk region.
Kupyansk is a little more uncertain, with mappers having Russian forces seizing most of the city’s south, or at least turning it into a gray zone:
However, Russian forces were also able to enter Kurylovka from the east, slowly encircling Kupyansk from the Oskol river’s eastern bank direction:
Lastly, we’ll leave off with this indicative post from top Ukrainian drone figure Maria Berlinska, who sounds alarms over the growing collapse of the AFU:
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“HURR DURR who would have thought that a cheap but sufficiently effective weapon produced in mass numbers could be a war winning weapon?!”
Gee I don’t know… Does the name T34 ring a bell?
“Western experts” truly deserve to be mercilessly mocked.
In brief, the Russians are managing a war in the classic manner:
Recruitment, training, and conservation of manpower.
Development, production, and deployment of weapons and reconnaissance systems.
Attending to logistics, food, fuel, ammunition, all the boring stuff not seen in video games.
The RF is winning the body exchange ratio big time and also gaining ground.
So what if it takes years, there is no time limit, no end to history.
Any mature adult lacking a cocaine habit or ADHD can appreciate this.
The owners of the combined west are engaged in profiteering and narrative management:
Not only is it what they know how to do, it is what they need to do.
Their economic system is dying and they need to loot what they can while they can.
As long as they can keep their proles misinformed and passive, it's all good.