Kiev, Ukraine
–
A small group of Russian troops stabbed parts of Ukrainian defense in the eastern Donetsk region as Russia appears to be making an 11-hour dash to take as much territory as possible before a scheduled meeting with President Vladimir Putin and his counterpart Donald Trump on Friday.
Russian troops are pushing towards Dubropylia, Ukrainian battlefield watchdog group Deep State reported Tuesday. The town is located about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the major strategic city of Pokrovsk, and is in the Kremlin crosshairs for over a year.
“The group of Russians has advanced about 10 kilometres (6 miles) in some places. They all have no equipment, only weapons in their hands. Some have already been discovered, partially destroyed, and partially captured.”
“The challenges of this progress are clear to us,” Zelensky added that Russia is trying to create a distorted perception before the Putin Trump conference.
Ukrainian officials acknowledged that the defense near Dubropyria had permeated the cluster of Russian troops, but stressed that this involved a small number of troops and did not mean that Russia had control of the territory. Elsewhere in the region, Ukrainian troops warned of “a heavy defensive battle against senior enemy forces.”
“In the direction of Pokrovsk alone, the occupying people have concentrated a group of over 110,000 staff,” Ukrainian general staff said in an update Tuesday evening, adding that the Army is allocating additional troops and assets to enhance the defense of some regions.
Zelensky said the overall proportion of talent is one-to-3 in favor of Russian troops, but added that Russia’s losses are three times greater than those in Ukraine.
“They are preparing for offensive operations in three directions, with the main directions being Zaporizhzhia, Pokrovsk and Novopavlivka,” Zelensky emphasized that accumulation of Russian troops took place just before they sat in Alaska on Friday.
“We believe we will do everything from the 15th onwards to prepare for aggressive behavior,” the Ukrainian president added. “We believe we will be ready with these brigades by September.”
In his meeting with Trump, Putin struggles to give the impression that Donetsk’s Russian progress is inevitable, as it could be that Russia might try to secure at the table of negotiations that Russia could not forcefully win. There is confusion about Putin’s reported conditions for a ceasefire in Ukraine, but most versions emphasize that the Russian president requires him to withdraw from all parts of the Donetsk region, which Ukrainian troops still hold.
However, Ukrainian officials on Tuesday warned that the frontline grip was loosening after months of Russia’s profits driven by Moscow’s excellent talent.
Lieutenant Colonel Bodan Krotevich, former chief of staff of the 12th Special Forces of the Ukrainian elite Azov Brigade, gave Zelensky a rare public warning about Ukraine’s restraint. “President, I honestly don’t know what you are being said, but I’m letting you know that the situation (near Pokrovsk) is a complete mess without exaggeration,” Krotevic writes to X.
“There’s virtually no frontline,” he said.
A commander near Pokrovsk, speaking on condition of anonymity, told CNN that Ukrainian defense in the region consists primarily of two positions replenished with drones alone. The battlefield consists of a series of almost hidden, isolated small front posts that attempt to secretly hold infantry without being discovered by enemy drones.
This new type of showdown is based on the benefits of greater talent in Russia. They surge in power in small groups, allowing them to lose their troops or strengthen their success if they encounter resistance.
“The enemy is trying to use the tactics of ‘thousand cuts’,” Valentin Manko, commander of the Ukrainian attack force, told CNN.
“Three small groups of several men each slid our position (near Dobropylia). They slipped off and caused some damage,” he said. “Some of them were destroyed and some became prisoners.”
Manko said Ukrainian officers are working to search the entire region, which could take several days.
Regional headquarters of Ukrainian ground forces in Donetsk claimed that many of the groups permeated the Ukrainian defense would be picked up soon.
“An enemy personnel infiltrating the location of (our) units are encountering Ukrainian soldiers and facing certain deaths,” he said.
Viktor Tregbov, a spokesman for Ukrainian ground forces in the adjacent Dnipro region, said these invasions “doesn’t mean that (Russia) controls its territory.”
“What really happened was that a small Russian group (probably 5-10 people) managed to slip through,” he said. The Battlefield Control Map emphasizes that it can be portrayed as the interests of Russia’s solid territorial interests, similar to those produced by the Deep State.
“That doesn’t mean they control the entire route they travelled. They simply tried to hide in the basement somewhere,” Tregbov said.
However, the fear of Kiev is that Russia uses many of these small groups, and even if many groups are ultimately picked up, the interests behind Ukrainian patchwork defenses can be integrated.
The War Institute, a Washington-based think tank, said Tuesday that calling the Russian army an “operational breakthrough” was “premature.”
The tactic is reminiscent of Russian penetration of Ukrainian defences around Avdivka, another city further east of Donetsk, which Russia was able to acquire in April 2024.
“The next few days in the Pokrovsk operational area will likely be important to Ukraine’s ability to prevent the rise in Russia in the north and northwest of Pokrovsk,” ISW evaluated.
Ukrainian military blogger Bodan Miloshnikov said in his assessment that “Pokrovsk is gradually approaching a point where it cannot be saved anymore.”
“At this point, we haven’t reached it yet. There’s no significant moment yet. But unfortunately, everything is heading in that direction for now,” he wrote in Telegram.
