Text taken from the Telegram channel of @genshtab24.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
Map references are at the link in the title.
You can read parts one and two here.
[ColonelCassad] The front is approaching Pokrovsk (Krasnoarmeysk). Should we expect an assault on Pokrovsk this year? No, definitely not.
First of all, what is so important and remarkable about Pokrovsk? Pokrovsk is the largest logistics center of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Donbass, which for years has served as a hub for distributing supplies throughout the entire territory of the DPR, from Ugledar to Artemovsk, Chasov Yar and the Slavyansk agglomeration.
So why shouldn't we expect it to be stormed anytime soon?
1. Pokrovsk is a huge city. The Pokrovsk agglomeration (~600 thousand people) is larger than Artemovsk and is second only to Donetsk in terms of population before the war.
2. The city has not only high-rise buildings, but also a large number of industrial and warehouse buildings; the Ukrainian Armed Forces will try to turn each building into a "Fortress".
3. There is no point in the Russian Armed Forces wasting their forces on storming Pokrovsk at the moment. Let's take a look at the map.
The main routes leaving Pokrovsk, which provided it with strategic importance (Blue - routes under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Yellow - unsafe routes under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, red - routes where the destination is controlled by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation or cut by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation):
1. Selidovo-Gornyak-Kurakhove. At the moment, this route is only operational up to Selidovo, further on the Russian Armed Forces have already cut it. And now, in order to deliver supplies to Kurakhovo, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have to go around along the Pokrovsk-Andreyevka-Kurakhove route.
2. The Pokrovsk-Konstantinovka route is currently classified as "unsafe" and the Armed Forces of Ukraine try not to use it without extreme necessity, because the Russian Armed Forces already have the ability to destroy transport on the route using drones. In addition, Russian forces have destroyed important bridges on this route.
3. The highways to Novogrodovka and Grodovka are pointless, because both cities are completely and almost completely controlled by Russian forces.
Thus, the strategic importance of Pokrovsk for the Ukrainian Armed Forces has significantly decreased at the moment, because it is under close surveillance by Russian forces and any important objects (warehouses, locations, training bases) can be destroyed by drones, Iskanders, missiles and FABs, not to mention gliding bombs.
Conclusions:
The assault on Pokrovsk should be expected only after the more important sections of the front at the moment (Ugledar, Selidovo, Gornyak, Toretsk) have been cleared. A clear marker of the imminent start of the imminent assault on the city will be the clearing of Mirnograd, as well as access to the Pokrovsk-Andreevka highway, which should not be expected in the autumn, and most likely in the winter campaign.
However, its strategic importance has been lost, although not completely. Thanks to Novogrodovka, our forces are now in the underbelly of the beast represented by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, leveling its potential as a hub city, allowing any targets within the city limits to be destroyed without problems, and a significant part of the cut highways also level its importance as a transit city, because the Ukrainian Armed Forces will not once again expose equipment to a lancet or FPV if the road through the city is neither safe nor fast
(c) "Orc from Mordor"