Kyiv, Aug 16: Military authorities in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk on Friday urged civilians to speed up their evacuation because the Russian army is quickly closing in on what has for months been one of Moscow’s key targets in the war.
Pokrovsk officials said in a Telegram post Friday that Russian troops are “advancing at a fast pace. With every passing day there is less and less time to collect personal belongings and leave for safer regions”.
Ukrainian troops have been trying to divert the Kremlin’s military effort from the front line in Ukraine to Russian soil by launching a bold incursion across the border into Russia’s Kursk region. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had warned on Thursday that Pokrovsk and other nearby towns in the Donetsk region were “facing the most intense Russian assaults”.
The urgency of the evacuation of civilians has underscored the high-stakes gamble Ukraine is making by taking the war into Russia with its ongoing Kursk assault that started on August 6.
The attack is a daring attempt to change the dynamics of the 2½-year conflict, but it could backfire and leave Ukraine’s shorthanded defence on the front line at the mercy of Russia’s push. The Kremlin’s forces have had battlefield momentum and superior forces in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region since the spring.
Ukraine is wagering it can cope with the strain on its resources involved in the attack in Kursk without sacrificing Donetsk. Russia apparently reckons it can contain the incursion without needing to ease up in Donetsk.
“Both cannot be right,” Nigel Gould-Davies, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said Thursday. “The outcome hangs in the balance.” Russia’s slow slog across Donetsk this year has been costly in terms of troops and armour, but its gains have mounted up.
Pokrovsk, which had a prewar population of about 60,000, is one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region. Its capture would compromise Ukraine’s defensive abilities and supply routes. It would bring Russia closer to its stated aim of capturing the Donetsk region than ever before.
Pokrovsk officials were meeting with the residents to provide them with logistical details on the evacuation. People were offered shelter in western Ukraine, where they will be hosted in dormitories and separate houses prepared for them.
In Kursk, meanwhile, Ukrainian troops have taken full control of Sudzha, Zelenskyy said Thursday. It’s the largest Russian town to fall to Ukraine’s forces since the start of their incursion 10 days ago, and the success raised Ukrainian spirits while embarrassing the Kremlin. (AP)
