Telegraph.com War Briefing on the Ukrainian Front: Siversk, Pokrovsk, Huliaipole and the Dnipro Line

The operational picture

Across the line three structural facts are difficult to argue with, even for those who dislike their implications.

First, Russia holds the initiative. Russian command decides where to push, when to intensify artillery and drone strikes and when to pause. Ukrainian formations still launch local counterattacks, but these are essentially fire brigade moves aimed at plugging gaps and slowing advances rather than at reshaping the front.

Second, the tempo is slow yet mostly one way. This is no longer a war of armoured columns racing along highways. It is a war of foot speed and quadcopters. The front moves by fields, tree lines and villages. Over recent weeks that movement has been consistent: westward pressure around Siversk, deep penetration into Pokrovsk, and erosion of the lines around Huliaipole.

Third, Ukrainian manpower and command capacity are under visible strain. Reports from units at Pokrovsk and Huliaipole describe shortages of infantry, lengthy deployments without rotation and an over reliance on drones to offset the lack of bodies. There are accounts of withdrawals that were improvised rather than ordered and decisions from higher headquarters that arrived late or conflicted. That does not imply imminent collapse, but it means every mistake now carries a higher price.

Sector by sector, north to south

Northern axis: Kharkiv, Kupyansk, Lyman

In the north, Russian forces keep steady pressure along the belt that runs from the border areas near Kharkiv through Kupyansk down towards Lyman. The method is familiar. Probing attacks seek out weak points, backed by artillery and drones. Where resistance stiffens, the attacks slacken and shift sideways.

At Kupyansk, Russian troops have at times entered the outskirts and nearby villages. Ukrainian defenders have responded with dense artillery fire and a high tempo of drone strikes, preventing a clean seizure of the town. For now, Kupyansk remains in Ukrainian hands, but it is under continuous threat and observation. South of there, in the Lyman sector, Russian formations keep pushing against forest belts and small settlements, aiming less for headlines and more for attrition and fixation.

The function of this axis is clear. It is a fixing front. Ukrainian brigades held here cannot be sent to shore up Pokrovsk or Huliaipole. At the same time, the proximity to Kharkiv ensures that Kyiv cannot afford to strip it bare without inviting further risk.

Siversk: hinge of northern Donbas

Further south sits Siversk, a town that has not yet fallen but now carries weight out of proportion to its size. Russian forces are working it from several directions, pressing in from the east, the south and the north east. Villages and patches of high ground in front of the town have changed hands under heavy artillery and drone fire as Russian infantry groups probe forward.

Siversk matters because it serves as the upper hinge of the Donbas defence. It anchors the northern end of the chain that runs down through Chasiv Yar towards Kostiantynivka and Kramatorsk. If that hinge bends or is turned, the entire belt becomes less stable. Ukrainian troops in the towns further south risk being gradually unhooked from their flanks.

At the moment Siversk is still held. There is no genuine encirclement, no classic cauldron. But the pressure is constant. Each kilometre lost around it increases the salience of the town and raises the cost of holding it.

Bakhmut and Chasiv Yar: a damaged shield

Moving down the line, the remains of the Bakhmut and Chasiv Yar corridor form a battered shield in front of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. The landscape is already ruined by earlier phases of the war. What is at stake now is less the buildings themselves and more the high ground and road network that still give Ukraine some control over approaches from the east.

Around Ivanivske west of Bakhmut, fighting remains intense. Russian forces continue to launch assaults with armour and infantry. Ukrainian units claim to have repelled many of them and to have destroyed attacking groups, but the line repeatedly flexes. Control of streets and positions in and around the village is contested rather than fixed.

Chasiv Yar has become a symbol as much as an objective. Russian statements have talked about full capture. Ukrainian sources and independent mapping still place Ukrainian units in parts of the western edge of the town and on the heights behind it. The reality on the ground is often a patchwork: blocks cleared by one side by day and infiltrated again by the other at night.

Despite the damage, this corridor still functions as a shield. It forces Russia to fight uphill into urban rubble and prepared positions before any drive towards Kramatorsk. The question is how long that shield can stand while the ground beneath it shifts further west around Pokrovsk.

Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad: central crisis point

Pokrovsk is the central crisis. Russian forces have been pushing against it for months. Now they are inside the town at depth. They hold large parts of its southern and central districts and have reached key rail and road nodes. There are Russian claims of near encirclement and of control over most of the city. Ukrainian officials dispute a complete ring but no longer deny that the battle is being fought deep inside the urban area.

For Ukrainian troops on the ground, the account is harsher. They speak of depleted infantry companies trying to hold long lines with the help of drones and artillery. They describe months without proper rotation and a sense that higher command is late in deciding whether to fight house by house or to pull back to a new line. In some places, local withdrawals appear to have been driven by tactical desperation rather than by a coordinated plan.

Pokrovsk matters far beyond its city limits. It is a main rail and road hub for the Donbas. Routes from western Donetsk, from Dnipro and from the northern line converge there. If Russia secures it completely and then pushes further west, Ukrainian forces face a difficult choice. They can stand and fight in the remaining urban belt, risking encirclement as routes are cut one by one, or they can trade ground for time and attempt to form a new line further back.

Myrnohrad, close by, is already under pressure. If Pokrovsk becomes untenable, the defence of Myrnohrad becomes a short term holding action rather than a long term plan. That is why this sector is one of the two key tests for Ukrainian command.

Novopavlivka shoulder: link to the south

South of Pokrovsk, along the Novopavlivka line, the war looks less dramatic on a map but serves an important purpose in practice. Russian units are grinding forward through fields, small villages and tree belts. They are doing the unglamorous work of flattening small salients, pushing Ukraine away from long established contact lines and tidying their own geometry.

This sector acts as a land bridge between Donetsk and the Zaporizhzhia front. The more Russia can secure and straighten it, the easier it becomes to support operations further south and to prevent Ukraine from using this area as a platform for future counterattacks.

On its own, Novopavlivka will not decide the war. It is a supporting axis, but a necessary one. Neglect here would create flanks that could be exploited later, which Russian planners seem determined to avoid.

Huliaipole and the Haichur line: southern hinge

In Zaporizhzhia, the focus is Huliaipole and the river lines behind it. For a long period, Huliaipole was one of Ukraine’s most fortified towns in the south. Recently that assumption has been forced to change. Russian forces have captured villages to the north and north east, and Ukrainian units have been pushed back towards new positions along river lines and ridges.

Accounts from Ukrainian soldiers describe heavy artillery and drone fire, erosion of forward strongpoints and withdrawals that were in some cases uncoordinated. The emerging defensive idea is to use the Haichur and nearby rivers as a fresh barrier. That requires time, engineering and manpower, all three of which are in short supply.

If Ukraine manages to stabilise on this river line and to rotate exhausted units out, the southern front becomes a long range duel again rather than an immediate crisis. If it fails, Russian units will find themselves in better striking distance of Zaporizhzhia city and of the lateral roads that feed the entire southern theatre.

Dnipro and Kherson: static but dangerous

Along the Dnipro and around Kherson, the pattern is one of static but deadly contact. Both sides maintain artillery exchanges and drone attacks across the river. Ukraine conducts raids and precision strikes on Russian logistics centres and troop concentrations on the left bank. Russia hits energy infrastructure, depots and staging areas on the right bank.

There have been no durable large bridgeheads created here in recent weeks. The sector functions more as a corridor for deep strikes than as an arena for major manoeuvre. Its importance will rise quickly if either side reaches for a dramatic change and chooses the river as the place to spring it.

Methods, posture and direction of travel

Beneath the local differences, the same methods recur along the front. Drones and artillery have become the main tools of killing and of control. Each side uses reconnaissance drones to find the other, FPV drones to attack specific targets and tube and rocket artillery to grind down positions over time. Russia appears to have the edge in cheap mass production of drones and in the integration of drone feeds with artillery in the sectors where it is pushing hardest.

Russia is also visibly conserving heavy armour compared with earlier phases. Rather than sending long columns forward, it is using small assault groups and stepwise advances. When a line holds, the pressure shifts sideways. When a weak point appears, more infantry and firepower are fed in. This approach reduces visible armour losses and suits a strategy that assumes a long war of attrition rather than a quick decision.

Ukraine, by contrast, is spending infantry and command cohesion to hold key nodes. It must. This is an existential fight. But the consequence is brutal. Units at Pokrovsk and Huliaipole report being held under pressure for month after month, with little rotation and thinning ranks. Political and symbolic pressure to hold certain towns at all costs limits the room for manoeuvre. It buys time, but time purchased in this way always comes with compound interest.

What matters in the coming weeks

Everything now hangs on three related questions.

The first is whether Ukraine can stabilise the situation at Pokrovsk. That does not necessarily mean holding every block indefinitely. It means deciding, in time, whether to fight for the last district or to withdraw to a fresh line without leaving large numbers of troops surrounded. A chaotic loss would be more than a local defeat. It would unhinge parts of the central Donbas defence and hand Russia a clear narrative victory as well as an operational one.

The second is whether Ukrainian forces can hold the Huliaipole and Haichur line in Zaporizhzhia. If they do, the southern theatre remains a grinding contest that Russia must pay for day after day. If they do not, Russian units begin to threaten Zaporizhzhia city more directly and to complicate Ukraine’s entire logistics network along the Dnipro.

The third is whether Ukrainian command can create genuine reserves instead of permanently using every available brigade as a fire brigade. Without time and space to refit, there is no realistic prospect of regaining the initiative. At present, the balance of pressure makes that pause difficult to find.

Until those questions are answered, the prudent conclusion is unchanged. The front is not yet collapsing, but the initiative and momentum belong to Russia, and the map is gradually tilting in its favour. The burden now falls on Ukrainian command to decide whether Pokrovsk and Huliaipole are turned into hard points that delay and bleed the advance or allowed to become the hinge of a wider and more costly retreat.

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