Russia’s defense ministry (MoD) announced this weekend the capture of another village in eastern Ukraine, bringing Russian troops much closer to the strategic Ukrainian logistical hub of Pokrovsk.

Russian troops “liberated the settlement of Zhelannoye Vtoroye” in the Donetsk region, the MoD said. Ukrainians often reference the same village by the name of Zhelanne Druge. The settlement is located close to Pokrovsk, which Russian forces have been steadily progressing toward as an ultimate prize which would bring them into easy control over the whole of Donetsk.

Via Reuters

The town’s fall is all but inevitable, as a stream of Western reports have suggested of late: “Russia knocked out around 80% of critical infrastructure in the town of Pokrovsk, a key logistics hub in Ukraine’s east, as Moscow’s troops inched forward, a local official said on Friday,” Reuters reported.

“Serhiy Dobriak, Pokrovsk’s military administration head, said Russian forces were at about 7 km (4 miles) from the town, which is at an intersection of roads and a railway that makes it an important logistics point for the military and for civilians in the eastern Donetsk region,” the report continued.

The same Ukrainian official said, “The enemy is leaving us without power, without water, without gas. Prepares us for the winter, so to say.”

Kiev has said that during weekend fighting, five Ukrainian civilians were killed by Russian shelling in the south and east of the country:

Prosecutors in the Donetsk region said two civilians, a 65-year-old woman and an 86-year-old man, were killed in the city of Toretsk and the village of Velyka Novosilka.

In the Zaporizhzhia region, governor Ivan Fyodorov said two men aged 44 and 46 were killed by Russian shelling in the village of Mala Tokmachka.

For the majority of the war, Pokrovsk has acted as the logistical hub and rear operations base for Ukraine’s eastern defensive lines. It sits astride both a key railroad juncture and the highway to Ukraine’s fourth-largest metro, Dnipro.  The city’s defensive positions are a final obstacle to Russia’s access to most of the region. If Pokrovsk falls Russian forces will be able to easily flank entrenched troops in the north and south of the country.

Via Sputnik/X

The loss of the primary rail lines and highway routes in and out of Pokrovsk would cut resources to Ukrainian units across the Donbas and possibly force them to retreat before running out of supplies. This would mean an immediate and sweeping Russian advance all along the eastern lines.  Where Putin goes from there is hard to say, but a campaign back into Western Ukraine, this time using attrition tactics, would not be unthinkable.  

Pokrovsk is, interestingly, valuable for another reason that’s not immediately apparent: It acts as high ground in a nation of lowlands, and high ground allows for more effective use of drones because the signals travel further and are harder to jam with electronic interference.