Videos showing aerial views of Pokrovsk before and after the Russian invasion reveal the scale of the destruction in this eastern Ukrainian city, where buildings reduced to rubble and destroyed bridges stand in dramatic contrast to footage from 2019 showing a bustling city.
Archive footage from 2019, provided by Orbita TV, shows streets filled with cars, residents walking with strollers, children on bicycles, and squares where people gathered for celebrations. In one video, citizens release blue and yellow balloons—the colors of the Ukrainian flag—into the sky during a public gathering.
The most recent videos, obtained by Reuters between September 2024 and February 2025, present a bleak picture: damaged and destroyed buildings, empty streets, a ruined railway bridge, and a completely devastated university.
Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated on Monday night what his commanders reported to him as the complete capture of Pokrovsk, stating that it would help Moscow achieve its broader war aims. However, on Tuesday, the military unit fighting in the city informed Reuters that Ukrainian troops still maintain control of the northern area.
Russia, which uses the Soviet name of Krasnoarmeisk to refer to the city, has faced fierce Ukrainian resistance in its battle since mid-2024 to capture Pokrovsk, which was once a strategic logistics center for the Ukrainian army.
Aerial images from November 2025 show extensive areas of destroyed and damaged buildings. Videos filmed from moving vehicles in December 2024 and February 2025 capture an elderly woman walking with a stroller past devastated structures, while explosions can be heard in the background.
In contrast to scenes from 2019 where cars crossed an intact bridge, a video from December 2024 shows a train passing by a destroyed bridge. Other footage from October 2025 shows vehicles driving near the collapsed structure.
Videos from December 2024 also capture people filling water bottles while explosions can be heard in the distance, highlighting the precarious conditions in which some residents continue to live.
The Ukrainian army's operational group responsible for the eastern front denied on Tuesday that Russian forces had captured Pokrovsk."Search and elimination operations against the enemy in urban areas are continuing in Pokrovsk," the group said in a statement posted on social media.
According to the Ukrainian army, the Russians attempted to raise a tricolor flag in a district of the city as a propaganda maneuver, but “after that they fled in haste.”
The Russian Defense Ministry insisted on Tuesday that “units of the Tsentr (Center) force group have completed the liberation of the city of Krasnoarmeisk (Pokrovsk)”.
The city, which had a population of more than 60,000 before the war, is located near Ukraine's only source of coking coal. Reuters could not independently verify claims from either side.
The alleged capture of Pokrovsk comes as the United States accelerates efforts to finalize a peace agreement for Ukraine. Putin was scheduled to hold talks in Moscow on Tuesday with US President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Russian analysts have suggested that the capture of Pokrovsk, if confirmed, would be Moscow's single largest territorial gain within Ukraine since it took the city of Avdiivka in early 2024, and could strengthen Moscow's negotiating position.
