Russian forces are surging an estimated 16,000 troops for a renewed offensive in eastern Ukraine that could begin in as little as 10 days as the Kremlin seeks to take more of the roughly 30% of the Donbas it has been unable to capture, a Ukrainian military commander exclusively told The Post on Wednesday.
“In the Pokrovsk direction, the Russians are trying to break through our defense lines,” said Maj. Oleh Shyriaiev, commander of Ukraine’s 225th Separate Assault Regiment.
“As far as I can see — and this is my subjective opinion — the enemy will be gathering some more reserves there, and within the next maybe 10 days, they will begin a counter-offensive.”
Pokrovsk, in eastern Ukraine, is a critical location for logistics — and a place where Moscow’s forces have been attempting to swallow up in more than a year of intensified focus.
Pokrovsk sits in the unoccupied region of the Donetsk Oblast, which Russian President Vladimir Putin seeks to take over entirely, but has been unable to capture in not just the past three and a half years of full-scale war, but also since fighting broke out in the oblast in 2014.
Putin last month demanded that Kyiv fork over the remaining Donetsk territory as part of a condition to end its war, but even top White House officials have laughed at that assertion, US and Ukrainian sources have told The Post, as the Kremlin can’t expect Ukraine to give up territory Russia does not even occupy.
This year, Russia has been fighting from four main axes: Sumy in north-central Ukraine, Pokrovsk in the east and Novopavlivka and Zaporizhzhia in the southeast.
As of Wednesday, half of those offensives have been defeated, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on X.
“The Sumy operation has already failed – Russia suffered heavy losses, especially in manpower, and has redeployed forces to other fronts. Ukrainian Armed Forces inflicted even greater losses on them there,” he said, without naming the second axis that fell.
“As a result, Russia is left with two operations. But it has lost so much manpower that it cannot deliver strong additional actions in the above mentioned directions,” he added.
But unlike Shyriaiev, Zelensky said he believed the Russian losses have been so severe that “as of now, they lack the strength for large-scale offensives.”
Still, Shyriaiev agreed that Ukraine has successfully beaten back recent Russian advances, most recently taking back a small village northeast of Pokrovsk that had been under Moscow’s occupation.
“Our battalion has managed to liberate a village called Pankivka and by that, we have created a threat for the enemy that had previously created a narrow salient,” he said.
“So we have created a threat of cutting off that salient.”
After the cut-off, “things are looking better” for Ukraine, Shyriaiev said, which also means it’s likely to become a key target of Russia’s very soon.
“So the situation is, if we will get timely support from our partners, then we will be able to also react to any such advances in a timely fashion,” he said, noting that his forces need additional artillery and munitions from foreign partners to fight back against the predicted Russian attempt to advance.
His call for aid came a day after Reuters reported that the Pentagon has approved at least two arms packages for Ukraine paid for by NATO partners, though it’s unclear what those packages may contain and when they may ship.
The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on the reported package approvals this week.
While Ukraine is mostly self-reliant on its own defense industry for combat and reconnaissance drones, Kyiv still needs European nations to purchase and donate more traditional weaponry, such as howitzers, from the US.
While drones can take out small groups of forces, Ukraine uses artillery to strike larger targets and groups of forces that Shyriaiev predicts could be advancing soon.
“Artillery is important because different types of artillery systems of different calibers allow us to work from at different distances,” he said. “Without artillery, modern war is impossible.”
“You cannot cover all of the needs of all of the fighting needs with drones, so artillery is not losing its relevance,” he added.
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