For the past three weeks, I have been keeping tabs open on a city in Eastern Ukraine called Pokrovsk. Every time I check the live interactive map of the war, the sentence, “it will soon fall” gets louder and louder in my head. As I am writing this piece, the certainty of the city’s seizure by Russian military forces has taken over me.
The war in Ukraine is approaching its fourth year with little hope for a resolution in sight. Since 2022, several cities of strategic importance have fallen as Russian military tactics have become more aggressive. The city of Mariupol was surrounded and eventually captured by Russian forces in May 2022 after a devastating, months-long siege. In other parts of eastern Ukraine, Bakhmut and Avdiivka eventually fell and were reduced to ashes, but not before long and bloody battles.
These cities might sound foreign to you, dear reader of The Colby Echo, but their significance cannot be underestimated. A quick Google search will tell you that Mariupol used to be a centre for manufacturing and trade, a hub for steel production — particularly the Azovstal plant — and the largest port on the Sea of Azov. Bakhmut was once known for its sparkling wine aging in gypsum caves, but today, it is a skeleton of concrete. Avdiivka was not only a major supplier for Ukrainian steel production, but also the home to over 32,000 people and the gateway to Donetsk city, the capital of the Donetsk region. More than anything, Avdiivka served as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance, as Russian troops attempted to seize it back in 2014 but ultimately failed.
Pokrovsk has its own story as well. Located only 35 miles northwest of Donetsk — roughly the distance from Waterville to Farmington — the city is Ukraine’s largest producer of coking coal. Yet, besides its economic significance, the city has been a token of reconstruction, and the closest an Eastern Ukrainian city has come to normalcy. When the Russian troops invaded Eastern Ukraine in 2014, Pokrovsk remained a relatively stable city, with many displaced families moving there. Though many nearby towns fell under the Russian occupation and were absorbed into what Moscow now calls the Donetsk People’s Republic, Pokrovsk stayed under Ukrainian government control. The ordinary was altered by the Ukrainian soldiers strolling the streets and the uncomfortably warm breath of Russian presence on your neck. Yet amidst these anomalies, residents continued to dine at the mafia-themed Corleone restaurant, pray in the gold-domed church of St. Michael the Archangel, and host visitors in hotels like Druzhba (Friendship) or Europe. Today, many of these places have been destroyed or seriously damaged with no resemblance to their once existing liveliness.
Last week, while Waterville woke up to snow, thick fog settled over Pokrovsk and blunted Ukrainian drone surveillance. This allowed over 300 Russian troops to drive into the city with little risk of being seen and neutralized. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Russian forces now outnumber Ukrainian troops in Pokrovsk eight to one. Although Zelenskyy has supported a potential withdrawal, it is ultimately the commanders on the ground who will decide whether to retreat or stay. As I speculate about what comes next, Russia envisions only one scenario for Pokrovsk: the city’s full seizure and the closure of the wider pocket in the area.
The seizure of Pokrovsk would make it the largest city to fall since Bakhmut in spring 2023. This might not give Moscow a straight corridor to more strategic cities or, necessarily, the upper hand in this war. But, it will lower the morale of Ukrainian forces, who have been overwhelmed by Russia’s brutal military strategy of attrition, which relies on sending wave after wave of soldiers, often with inadequate training.
With Russian troops so close to claiming yet another foothold in their slow, grinding advance through Donetsk, a familiar tune is returning to the battlefield. It might be the same tune I hear when I check the news on Pokrovsk, though softened by the thousands of miles in between. It is like a peacock humming until its call turns into agitated screams. I’m sure many others have heard it before, likely in Bakhmut and Avdiivka, when many military analysts told Kyiv it had lost too many soldiers to keep holding the embattled cities. To us, it might sound like a tune of loss, despair, and grief. But to Ukrainians, it is a song of freedom. Either way, we must listen.
~ Cristina Panaguta `26
Be First to Comment