Pokrovsk was supposed to fall. Instead, Ukraine just stunned Russia with a massive 3-kilometer breakthrough deep into Russian defensive lines. As Moscow pours reserves into Donetsk, Ukraine is striking command posts, shattering logistics, and launching relentless counterattacks across the front. In this video, we break down how Ukraine caught Putin’s forces off guard, why Pokrovsk is becoming a nightmare for Russia, and how deep drone strikes and mounting Russian losses could signal a major shift in the war’s momentum.
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/r0DiT64V
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/r0DiT64V
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Pokrovsk was supposed to have fallen. The Donetsk-based city was meant to be in Russia's
00:04control and it was being used as a push-off point for assaults deeper into the region.
00:09But that just changed. Something extraordinary is happening in Pokrovsk as Ukraine just pulled
00:14off an insane 3km breakthrough in the region. Russia just got caught with its pants down.
00:20But the bigger story is that Pokrovsk is just one example of what is happening all
00:24across the front lines as deep strikes and counter-attacks give Ukraine all of the momentum.
00:28Let's start with what happened in Pokrovsk. On May 19th, the spokesperson for the Ukrainian
00:33volunteer army, Serhiv Brachuk, revealed that Ukraine's assault teams had managed to wedge
00:38themselves deep into the Pokrovsk region that Russia claims to control. A brutal push took
00:43the Ukrainian defense forces up to 3km deep through the Russian defense lines, as a series
00:48of counter-attacks showed that Ukraine has the perfect answer to the reserves that Putin
00:52is pumping into the Pokrovsk region right now. Those reserves are poorly trained and ill-prepared
00:58for what the more experienced Ukrainian fighters bring to the table. Ukraine just showed Putin
01:02why that's a problem, with Brachuk labeling what has just happened as being
01:06more than ordinary tactical actions. Brachuk revealed what he could to UATV.
01:11If we're talking about Pokrovsk, I cannot name the exact location for obvious reasons,
01:15but here the defense forces manage to carry out not just tactical counter-attacks,
01:19they can be called breakthrough actions, Brachuk declared before adding.
01:23Because in some locations, our forces managed to wedge themselves 3km into the depth of the
01:27Russian occupier's defense. Then he delivered the last message that Putin wanted to hear,
01:32and the operation continues. As Russia tries to prioritize Donetsk,
01:36Ukraine is launching clever counter-attacks in the regions where Putin's forces are weakest.
01:40Pokrovsk now appears to be one of those regions. And if Brachuk is right, what we've just seen
01:45isn't a one-off. It's a starting point for more operations that Ukraine will use to push deeper
01:50into the Russian defensive lines, which, in turn, has massive ramifications for what Putin is planning
01:55for the rest of Donetsk. And there's more. We gained a little insight into what Ukraine's
02:00Pokrovsk push looked like from Ukraine's 413th Unmanned Systems Forces Regiment, otherwise known as
02:06the RAID Regiment. In a post on X, RAID shared a video of one of their drones scoring direct hits
02:11on a
02:12Russian command post, nettled in the remains of a high-rise building in Pokrovsk. The video is
02:16interesting. As each drone follows the last, we see the command post degrade to the point where
02:21it's a flaming wreck. That command post was being used by the 9th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade,
02:26or SMRB, of the 51st Army of the Russian Federation, RAID revealed. And it's been deliberately set up in
02:32the ruins of a high-rise building, because Russia hoped that this would make the post impossible to
02:36detect. Russia was wrong. The destruction of the command post of the 9th SMRB from the 51st
02:42Army will weaken the enemy's capabilities to plan and coordinate offensive actions in
02:46the Donbas, RAID declared. That's a little hint about why Ukraine's push into Pokrovsk is so
02:50important. But what will really devastate Putin is that Bratchett reveals that the Ukrainian
02:55counterattack in Pokrovsk is just one of several similar operations happening all over Donetsk.
03:00Beyond Pokrovsk, Ukrainian forces are pushing in the Myrnyad, Liman, and Konstantinivka directions,
03:06where they are slowly reversing Russian gains that took Putin's forces months to make.
03:10This is a campaign that impacts all of Donetsk, as Ukraine is shattering the Russian lines in
03:15what is now supposed to be the rear, which is crippling Russia's attempts to push deeper
03:19into Donetsk. But hold on a second, you might be thinking. How could any of this be possible?
03:23Pokrovsk was supposed to have fallen to Russia a long time ago. Now we're almost halfway through
03:272026. Surely that region should be under Russia's full control. That's certainly what Putin and his
03:32cronies wanted you to think. But the reality is far more complex. Russia does indeed claim to hold
03:38Pokrovsk. The Kremlin has been making that claim for a while now, stretching back to when the Chief
03:42of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, said that Pokrovsk was under Russia's
03:46control on December 1st, 2025. Gerasimov was so eager to spread this news that the Kremlin even
03:52announced it on Telegram, and he even reported the news directly to Putin. Not coincidentally,
03:58the news of Russia's capture of Pokrovsk arrived just at the right time for Putin to use it as leverage
04:02in peace talks that were held a few days later. It wasn't long before the Russian lies were exposed.
04:08A day after Gerasimov's claims, the Institute for the Study of War, or ISW, claimed that it hadn't
04:13seen any evidence to suggest that Russia had completed the seizure of Pokrovsk. The ISW also
04:18cast doubt on whether the city, assuming that it fell, would actually serve as the good base for the
04:22rest of Russia's plans in Donetsk that Putin claimed it would be. At the time, Ukraine still had
04:26fortifications in the west, north, and northeast of Pokrovsk that were complicating Russia's attempts
04:30to advance through the region. Of course, all of this was reported at the end of 2025.
04:35Russia has made more progress since then, and there are no illusions about the Pokrovsk situation
04:39being good for Ukraine. But it's also not as cut and dry as Russia wants it to appear. There is
04:44still
04:44fighting ongoing in that region, as well as in the city that Russia claims to hold. We know that due
04:50to
04:50comments made by the Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces, Alexander Siersky, who claims that Russia
04:55has amassed around 99,000 soldiers in the Pokrovsk direction, which amounts to the largest Russian
05:00grouping across the entire front in Ukraine. That's a lot of soldiers, sure. But these are
05:05soldiers who should be amassed around the Donetsk fortress belt, and particularly the city of
05:08Konstantinivka. The fact that they are built up in the Pokrovsk region tells us two things.
05:13First, Pokrovsk isn't quite the good base for launching new attacks that Putin claimed it to be.
05:17If it were, those 99,000 soldiers would be pushing much deeper into Donetsk, bringing Putin closer to
05:22his stated goal of taking the Donbass by September. That seems like an impossible deadline, especially
05:27now that Ukraine is pushing back in Pokrovsk. And second, the troop buildup in Pokrovsk tells us
05:32that Russia is concerned about losing ground. Russia is setting up defensive lines in a region
05:36that it claims to fully control because it knows that portions of that control are far weaker than
05:41Russia wants to admit. Now, the Kremlin doesn't have to admit anything. Ukraine just showed the world
05:46that it can make progress in Pokrovsk. So the situation in Pokrovsk isn't as good for Russia as the Kremlin
05:51claims. But it gets so much worse when you start to look at what's happening behind the lines.
05:56A three-kilometer counterattack is great news for Ukraine. It shows that there are weaknesses
06:00in Russia's Donetsk defenses that can be exploited. But behind the problem, there is a much bigger
06:05issue. Before we dig deeper into that, this is a reminder that you are watching The Military Show.
06:10If you're getting insight from the channel, then make sure that you are subscribed.
06:13You break it down like this every single week.
06:16Putin's much bigger problem in Pokrovsk is this. The strikes in the rear are as dangerous,
06:21if not more so, than Ukraine's counterattack on the front.
06:24Brachuk highlights this, telling UATV,
06:27There were strikes deep into the temporarily occupied territory against what is connected
06:31to enemy logistics, and this affects the intensity of combat operations and Russian ability to
06:35continue the aggressive war. It's the middle-range campaign that is really hurting Russia in Pokrovsk
06:40and the wider Donetsk region. The destruction of the command post that we highlighted earlier
06:44offers an example, but it goes much deeper than that. As The Independent points out,
06:48Ukraine has been pouring a huge amount of resources into being able to execute strikes in the range of
06:5330 to 180 kilometers behind the front lines. These attacks target things like command posts,
06:58as we've already seen, along with military vehicles, air defenses, and logistics. These types of attacks
07:03won't change the course of the war on their own. But what they do is open up opportunities for
07:07assaults elsewhere. That's what we've likely just seen in Pokrovsk. Using its new generation of
07:12middle-range drones, Ukraine has battered the Russian rear in the Pokrovsk region. The beating that Russia
07:17took will have led to some of its front-line troops losing support, and perhaps even communications
07:21capabilities with their commanders. Chaos ensues. Russia's defenses become less organized, and that's
07:26when Ukraine's assault teams are able to strike, taking out the scattered Russian troops to dig deep
07:31into the defensive lines. Bratchett claims that these middle-range strikes won't reduce Russian
07:36assaults. He may be wrong about that, as you'll learn in a few minutes. But even if he were right,
07:40the main point he makes is that Ukraine's middle-range strategy, when combined with its counter-attacks,
07:45and the fearsome defenses it has set up elsewhere in Donetsk, is forcing a level of attrition that
07:49Russia simply can't handle. However, the problem for them has become, in particular,
07:53replenishing the losses that they are sustaining, Bratchett says of Russia's forces in Donetsk.
07:57The enemy's daily losses are steadily reaching around 1,000 killed and wounded. These are heavy
08:02losses for the Russians. They are forced to use strategic reserves for other purposes,
08:05to plug their own gaps instead of trying to break through to us. Again, we likely saw this in Pokrovsk.
08:10As massive as a gathering of 99,000 soldiers in that region may be, it doesn't mean much as an
08:15offensive force when Russia is losing so many soldiers that those troops are being used to
08:19close gaps in the lines rather than to launch assaults. Let's hone in on Bratchett's comments
08:24about Russia's losses for a moment. There are some interesting figures coming out of the last couple
08:28of months that lend some context to how bad things really are for Russia. According to Sierski,
08:33Russia is now losing 3.5 times more soldiers than Ukraine across the entire front. The ratio gets even worse
08:39for Russia when comparing the number of soldiers killed on each side. On some days, Sierski claims,
08:43Russia is losing between seven and nine soldiers to death for every one Ukrainian soldier that is
08:48killed. That alone highlights the lack of sustainability that Bratchett discusses. Dead
08:54soldiers can't be cycled back onto the battlefield, whereas wounded soldiers may be able to recover and
08:58fight again. But we can go even deeper. According to Ukraine's Ministry of Defense, Russia's military losses
09:04for April amounted to 35,203 killed or wounded. Similar losses were recorded in March, giving us
09:10a total of around 70,000. Now, let's apply Sierski's ratio to that total. What we see is that Ukraine
09:16has
09:16lost about 20,000 soldiers to death or injury between March and April, compared to the 70,000 that Russia
09:22lost. And again, remember that Russia is losing a lot more soldiers to death than it is to injury.
09:27On March 10th, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that 62% of Russia's casualties amount to
09:32kills achieved by Ukraine versus 38% wounded. So 70,000 casualties in two months amounts to 43,400
09:40soldiers that Russia will never get back. That's more than twice the number of total Ukrainian
09:45casualties for the same period. Bratchett appears to have a point. Russia is losing soldiers at a rate
09:50that can't be sustained. And somehow, we can go even deeper into the maths to highlight just how bad
09:54things are for Russia in Donetsk. On April 8th, United24 media reported that Russia is losing 316
10:01soldiers per square kilometer that they capture in the Donetsk region. There are about 6,000 square
10:06kilometers of that region left to capture. If we're talking about sustainability, then the maths here
10:11is a problem for Putin. At this rate, Russia will have to sacrifice almost 1.9 million soldiers to
10:16finally take Donetsk. It's not looking good for the 99,000 troops gathered in Pokrovsk. Russia will have
10:22burned through all of those soldiers in a matter of months. Then it will need more and more. Donetsk still
10:27won't have fallen. Throw Ukraine-making gains in Pokrovsk into the mix, along with all of the
10:31medium-range strikes that Ukraine is conducting, and the situation goes from bad to worse for Russia.
10:37Ukraine pulled off the extraordinary in Pokrovsk. Russia was caught with its pants down and it's
10:41going to spend the next few months getting a spanking. And the craziest thing about all of
10:45this is that Putin is going to continue to order his troops to march cheek-first into the Ukrainian
10:49paddle. The deputy head of the Ukrainian president's office, Pavlo Palisa, says that Donetsk is going to be
10:55Russia's main point of focus as the failed spring offensive moves into summer. Putin's goal is still
11:00to reach the Donetsk administrative border, and that means he needs a stable Pokrovsk from which
11:05to launch assaults and a collapsed fortress belt. He has neither. He's not even close to having these
11:10two things. But Putin will still order attacks, which are growing weaker by the month as Ukraine
11:15shatters the Russian rear and regains ground in Pokrovsk. Russia will continue to push, but the situation
11:21is starting to crumble. And that brings us nicely back to Bratrick's comments about Russia maintaining
11:26its level of assaults. That may not be accurate. On May 19th, Siersky revealed that Ukraine has
11:31reached parity with Russia in terms of the number of assaults it's conducting and on some days,
11:35it's Ukraine that comes out ahead in that area. For example, yesterday, the general did not specify the
11:40exact day, the situation was characterized by the fact that the number of our offensive actions for the
11:45first time exceeded the number of offensive actions by the enemy, Siersky claimed in an interview with
11:50Militani. Now, Siersky didn't state when yesterday was. The interview was published on May 9th, but it
11:55may have been filmed before then. But the takeaway here is that Ukraine is hitting Russia harder than
12:00Russia is hitting Ukraine. That isn't supposed to be happening. And it's an insane achievement for
12:04Ukraine when Russia has gathered 99,000 troops in Pokrovsk. The pressure is starting to be put on
12:09Putin's forces. And three kilometers gained in Pokrovsk is proof that the pressure is starting to pay off.
12:15Zelensky also has plenty to say about what we're now seeing in Pokrovsk, Donetsk,
12:19and the entire battlefield. In his May 19th daily address to his people, Ukraine's president said
12:24that the tide is turning across the front. This month has brought a shift in the dynamics in our
12:28favor, in Ukraine's favor. We are holding more positions and inflicting more damage. The impact
12:33of our long-range sanctions against Russia has been especially significant. Zelensky also confirmed that
12:38he has approved Ukraine's long-range plans for June. We'll get back to why that's important after we
12:43highlight something else that is shifting in the Ukraine war. Military reforms are underway that are
12:47designed to make Ukraine an even more powerful fighting force than it already is. In his interview
12:52with Militanyi, Siersky said that new contracts are being created, higher pay is going to be offered
12:57to Ukraine's soldiers, and better mechanisms are being put in place to govern the dismissal from
13:02service for soldiers who have fulfilled their contracts. In particular, more financial incentives
13:06are going to be offered to soldiers who fill the most urgent positions on the battlefield,
13:09which will do wonders for morale. Ukraine's push into Pokrovsk and its counterattacks
13:13elsewhere have already created a buoyant mood as Ukraine feels momentum shifting in its favor.
13:18These reforms have been timed perfectly to enable Ukraine to build on its successes.
13:22Now the deep strikes, what makes them so important? Zelensky is so keen to highlight that he has
13:26approved plans for Ukraine's deep strike campaign because they play into what we've already discussed,
13:31the gradual whittling away of Russia's strength in the rear. In the occupied territories,
13:35middle-range drones are shattering the support system that Putin's patsies on the front require,
13:39which is creating the opportunities for Ukraine to launch the sorts of counterattacks that we're
13:44now seeing in Pokrovsk. However, the broader picture encompasses Ukraine's strikes deep into
13:48Russia itself. Ukraine's attacks on Russia's heartland have been causing serious problems.
13:53Ahead of the Pokrovsk breakthrough, Ukraine unleashed hundreds of drones against Moscow and mainland Russia,
13:58including a strike against the Perm oil refinery that is 1,500 kilometers away from Ukraine and has
14:04been hit several times in May. Ukraine's long-range campaign has become so massive that the Atlantic Council
14:09felt confident enough to say that Ukraine is winning the drone war in the May 19th piece.
14:14Ukraine's strikes against Russia's oil refineries and ports have limited Russia's ability to profit
14:19from its most valuable product, in addition to causing issues with getting fuel and other oil
14:23products to troops operating in Ukraine. Every attack against an air defense system inside
14:27occupied Ukraine opens up aerial pathways that Ukraine can use to launch more attacks against Russia.
14:33And even Ukraine's FPV drones have extended ranges, with some reaching distances of more than 70 kilometers
14:38fighters to strike behind Russian lines. It's a death-by-a-thousand-cuts strategy,
14:43and we're now starting to see it pay off. As impressive as Ukraine's counterattack in Pokrovsk is,
14:48it's just one example of many pushbacks that Ukraine has pulled off in 2026. Territories being
14:53liberated in the south and the east. Russia's forces on the front are being weakened as their direct
14:58support in the occupied territories is destroyed and Ukraine's long-range strikes intensify. The very
15:04foundation of the spring and summer offensive that was supposed to take Donetsk has crumbled.
15:08Ukraine is now ripping through the Russian front, and we may now be seeing the start of a wider
15:12counteroffensive that will expose Putin for the useless tactician that he really is.
15:17No matter where Putin looks, whether it's at the drones, the number of assaults being launched
15:20on the front, or even the amount of territory being taken, Ukraine is coming out on top.
15:25And now Russia's leader knows that not even his capital city is safe. There was no mercy,
15:30only revenge as Russia erupted into giant fireballs earlier in May. If you want to find out just how
15:35deadly Ukraine's long-range strategy has become, then check out our video covering Ukraine's
15:40retaliatory strikes in response to Russia's brutal actions in Kyiv. And if you enjoyed this video,
15:45remember to subscribe to The Military Show so you don't miss what we have in store next.
Comments