Russian troops have approached the city’s outskirts, testing Ukrainian defensive lines in Mirnograd (Dimitrov), Grodovka, Novogrodovka and Selidovo. In mid-August, Krasnoarmeysk’s military administration announced that Russian forces had approached to within 10 km of the city, and urged civilians to evacuate. The Ukrainian General Staff said Wednesday that the Pokrovsk (Krasnoarmeysk) area was one of the “hottest” along the entire front.
That’s because Krasnoarmeysk is a key railway and highway junction, situated at the intersection of rail lines leading to Pavlograd and Dnepr (formerly Dnepropetrovsk). The M30 (E50) Pokrovsk-Karlovka-Donetsk highway passes through the city, as do three other major roads.
Krasonarmeysk developed as a major industrial and coal mining center after WWII, enjoying its heyday in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and becoming the home of enterprises related to the coal industry, mechanical engineering (including automotive manufacturing) and railway maintenance, with the city’s population booming to nearly 155,000 by 1989.
The city lost roughly two-thirds of its population in the three decades that followed, and was home to about 53,000 people before the escalation of fighting this summer – when it dropped to roughly 35,000. The Pokrovsky District agglomeration, which includes the city and its environs, had a population of some 386,000 people as of early 2022. Krasonarmeysk was renamed Pokrovsk in 2016, in accordance with the post-Maidan Ukrainian government’s ‘decommunization’ laws (‘Krasnoarmeysk literally means ‘Red Army City’).
Western media and officials have sounded the alarm about the dire situation in Krasnoarmeysk. Forbes warned Monday that “hundreds of Ukrainian troops” from four separate brigades could be encircled if local defenses crack, and said that “a Ukrainian retreat may already be underway.”
Former German MoD chief of staff Nico Lange told Newsweek Wednesday that “what we see in Pokrovsk is the result of the very late and insufficient mobilization effort that was delayed politically in Ukraine.” “Not having mobilized enough, defense around Pokrovsk is now a big problem,” with “many units” unable to hold the line or having to retreat “because they are just staffed by 10 or 20 or 30 percent,” Lange said.
Amid fighting near the city, Kiev is apparently preparing the population psychologically for Krasnoarmeysk’s loss. “Will it affect the entire front? Some say that all logistical routes will be closed, that we will not be able to hold the defense and the entire Donbass will be captured. I do not agree, since the enemy is capturing territories only gradually. These are key territories, but even if the enemy takes Pokrovsk, this doesn’t mean the war is lost,” Rada Defense and Security Committee chief Roman Kostenko assured on Monday.