Ukraine risks losing city Pokrovsk, which is in the Donetsk region. There, Ukrainian defenders have been holding back brutal attacks by Russian occupiers for over a year and a half.

ABC News says that before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pokrovsk was home to about 60,000 people. Now the city has become a key target in the Kremlin's years-long effort to seize the entire Donetsk region.

For now, Ukraine is holding the city's defenses. The authors of the article note that its fall would be one of the most serious defeats for Kyiv since March, when the Defense Forces were forced to withdraw from the Kursk region of the Russian Federation.

The situation in Pokrovsk

Russia has been trying to surround Pokrovsk and neighboring Mirnograd from the north and south for months. According to the publication, the occupiers are close to cutting the main roads leading to Pokrovsk.

Key supply lines to the city are already under attack from Russian drones, making deliveries dangerous and difficult. In addition, this situation threatens the ability of Ukrainian forces to retreat, the authors note.

"The Ukrainians could well continue their defense beyond Pokrovsk and Myrnohorada," Pasi Paroinen of the Finnish organization Black Bird Group, which analyzes open source information, said in an interview with ABC News.

According to him, urban centers"are usually good tactical defensive positions." At the same time, he emphasized that"when you are already surrounded on three sides, and your lines of communication are cut or disrupted as badly as they are there now, then these positions become a burden and simply exhaust Ukrainian resources."

What could be the consequences of retreating from Pokrovsk?

According to Paroinen, the retreat of the Defense Forces may even improve Kyiv's prospects. He suggested that new defensive positions have been prepared in the west of the city. If these new fortifications are not ready,"then they will have a bigger problem than the failure to hold Pokrovsk and Myrnograd."

Any attempt to retreat could be complicated by the constant threat of drones, the report said. So, it is likely that Ukrainian forces will be forced to break through to the west of the city, using their supply routes, which are under fire.

If it is not possible to retreat from there, a large number of Ukrainian soldiers may be surrounded.

"The Ukrainians have been defending these cities for too long, I would say. The Russians have already penetrated too deeply into Pokrovsk, and in my opinion, there are too many of them for the Ukrainians to be able to drive them out," Paroinen stated.

Battles for Pokrovsk: other news

Russian occupation forces have increased their activity in Pokrovsky section front. In one day, the enemy conducted 100 assault operations there. As DeepState wrote, the Russian occupation forces are not sparing any reserves.

The NYT explains that the Russians concentrated on Pokrovsk, as it is seen as the last major obstacle preventing Russian forces from approaching Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Putin could use the fall of the city to advance the narrative that Russia is advancing on the battlefield and that the war for Ukraine will only get worse.