Ukraine War Map Shows Russian ‘Pincers’ on Donetsk Front

Russian forces have continued to make advances toward the city of Pokrovsk, according to the U.S. think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW), whose latest map shows the state of play on the front line in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

Pro-Moscow military bloggers have said that Vladimir Putin‘s troops are attempting to envelop or encircle Ukrainian forces in Vuhledar. It lies around 40 miles south of Pokrovsk, a logistics hub whose capture would deliver a huge boost to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian and Russia defense ministries for comment.

The Ukrainian open-source intelligence channel Deep State said the town of Prechystivka was now occupied by Russia, while the Telegram channel Katyonik posted that this advance “looks like a prelude to enveloping Vuhledar in pincers.”

The ISW’s map on Tuesday of terrain east of Pokrovsk marks some of these front-line developments, including Russian advances on Tuesday toward Halytsynivka and Nevelske.

The pro-Ukrainian Conflict Intelligence Team said that Ukrainian forces to the west of the village of Nevelske “are at risk of being encircled,” adding that they should withdraw “before Russian forces cut off their supply and retreat routes.”

“What we see in Pokrovsk is the result of the very late and insufficient mobilization effort that was delayed politically in Ukraine,” Nico Lange, ex-chief of staff for Germany’s Defense Ministry, told Newsweek. “Not having mobilized enough, defense around Pokrovsk is now a big problem.

“Many units in the Pokrovsk area have the problem that they cannot hold the line or they have to retreat because they are just staffed by 10 or 20 or 30 percent—and they lack personnel,” added Lange, nonresident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).

In the coming months, Kyiv hopes that a bill, signed into law in April to overhaul Ukraine’s draft rules to generate fresh manpower, will bear fruit.

The Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies has said that Russian troops in the Pokrovsk direction have a four to one advantage over Ukraine in both personnel and the supply of drones and ammunition. It said Russia could reach the outskirts of Pokrovsk by mid-September at the current rate, albeit at a heavy cost in troops and equipment.

Russian forces have accelerated their gains in Donetsk since the start of Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, raising questions in Ukrainian society about the objectives of Kyiv’s push when hammered by Russian advances in Donetsk.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told NBC News that Kyiv intend to hold “indefinitely” onto the 500 square miles of territory it says it has captured.

“Many people are seeing what is happening around Pokrovsk, and they are asking the question, ‘why are we doing this Kursk thing if there is a difficult situation around Pokrovsk?'” said Lange. However, he added that Russian advances in Donetsk are “not directly connected to Kursk because those were different units that were trained to attack.”