A Year of Assault, Zero Breakthrough: What Russia’s Costly Battle for Pokrovsk Reveals
Russia’s months-long assault on Pokrovsk has emerged as one of the most exhausting and irrational chapters of the war. In a new analysis for The Gaze, Bohdan Popov, Head of Digital at the United Ukraine Think Tank and communications specialist, explains how Moscow sacrificed tens of thousands of soldiers for a largely symbolic advance.
Over the course of a year, Ukrainian defenders estimate that Russia suffered around 100,000 killed and severely wounded in this single direction alone. According to Popov, these losses point to a painful truth: Russia is burning through its own offensive potential in exchange for limited territorial gains.
Popov underscores that if Kyiv ultimately pulls back from Pokrovsk, such a decision must be viewed through the lens of rational military planning. Ukraine has already demonstrated in Bakhmut and Avdiivka that withdrawing from untenable positions preserves the most critical resource in a war of attrition: trained soldiers.
In those previous battles, Russia suffered the highest casualties of the entire war – 70–100 thousand in Bakhmut, 40–50 thousand in Avdiivka, while Ukraine withdrew in an organized manner, maintained its brigades, and stabilized the front. “Ukraine does not play by the Putin model of the "meat grinder." Ukraine plays a long war of attrition, where the main resource is not square kilometers, but trained units,” Popov stated.
One of the few Russian “wins” in Pokrovsk has been gaining control over the local mine and part of the Shevchenko lithium deposit – one of Donbas’s most promising resource areas. Lithium is among the world’s most sought-after commodities, essential for electronics, batteries, and high-tech military systems.
But Popov notes that the Kremlin’s celebration is premature. Mining in a war zone, under international sanctions, without export routes or access to Western technology, makes economic exploitation nearly impossible.
Popov highlights that Ukraine continues to safeguard its most valuable resource: its cadre units, officers, and trained fighters. But he warns that long-term success requires a significant increase in Western supplies, especially as Russia intensifies aerial bombardment with glide bombs and artillery.
According to the analysis, Ukraine urgently needs more artillery and tank ammunition, additional multiple rocket launchers and missiles, extended long-range strike capabilities, strengthened air defense for infrastructure and front-line areas, and large-scale, continuous deliveries of drones.
The lesson of Pokrovsk, Popov argues, reinforces a central truth of the war: battle outcomes matter less than the balance of forces over time. Popov concludes that the war will be determined not by the fate of one city but by the ability of each side to sustain manpower, ammunition, and technological advantage.
Read the full analysis on The Gaze: Russia’s Costly Assault on Pokrovsk Brings No Strategic Gain