If Russia is fast approaching a key Ukrainian city is the Kursk incursion a setback for Russia? And if it is, wouldn’t it be a setback for Ukraine- since they should have moved their reserves/reinforcements to protect this key city instead of into Kursk?
Russia is “rapidly approaching” a key military hub in eastern Ukraine, a local official has said, as Moscow continues its advances despite Kyiv’s surprise gains in its enemy’s Kursk region.
While Pokrovsk is not a major city – about 60,000 people lived there before the war and many have left since the start of the full-scale invasion – it serves as a key hub for the Ukrainian military thanks to its easy access to Kostiantynivka, another military center.
Ukrainian troops use the road connecting the two to resupply the front lines and evacuate casualties toward Dnipro.
Serhii Dobriak, head of the Pokrovsk city military administration, urged the community there to evacuate without delay.
“The enemy is rapidly approaching the outskirts of Pokrovsk,” he said in a Telegram post on Thursday.
His warning is proof that Moscow has not relented in its attack on other parts of Ukraine,despite Kyiv’s successful incursion across the border over the past week, a major development after two-and-a-half years of open conflict.
Russia appears to have diverted several thousand troops from frontline fighting in occupied Ukraine in order to address the territorial loss in the Kursk region.
What appears to be is not necessarily what is.
But according to Dobriak, the enemy is “almost right up close” to Pokrovsk, Ukraine’s key logistics and military hub that has become the focus of the Russian offensive in the Donetsk region.
Based on my limited understanding of this situation it didn’t seem likely that Russia would need to divert troops from the front line. Clearly they’ve carried on.