Same is happening in Myrnohrad as in Pokrovsk month ago
Another town where the same developments are unfolding and should have been dealt with a month ago is Huliaipole in the Zaporizhzhia region
As recently as about ten days ago, our troops advanced into Pokrovsk and were holding positions across the entire city. In one building, there were both our soldiers and the enemy. Fighting was taking place in every block. Because it was often unclear who was where, there were incidents of friendly fire. The chaos in actions stopped when the Air Assault Corps launched its operation there. But even then, it was not possible to drive the enemy out of Pokrovsk. At present, the part of the city beyond the railway line towards Selydove is completely controlled by the Russians. Ukrainian defenders still hold positions in the northern part. They are trying to hold out as long as possible. It is possible that this is exactly what will allow the units concentrated in Myrnohrad to break out of the encirclement. The situation is unfolding in Myrnohrad exactly the same way as it did in Pokrovsk.
By the way, from Pokrovsk, from positions in the south of the city, there have still been no orders to pull people out. This was called a regrouping. And they were allowed to do it when it was already quite late. Commanders who assessed the situation and responded to it on their own were secretly, quietly pulling people out, to save personnel who in that situation, could no longer fight the enemy and would definitely either have been killed or taken prisoner. Make no mistake: criminal cases have already been opened and investigations are under way against those commanders who responded promptly to the situation, thinking first and foremost about their people, because they did not wait for orders that still have not come. It has long been clear that the fine words that the main thing is to preserve soldiers, that people are the army’s highest value, are only slogans for senior commanders. The hypocrisy shown by our "brilliant headquarters", which claims to be "controlling complex situations" while ignoring the concerns of commanders who know the situation in their sector of responsibility very well, is off the charts.
In Myrnohrad, there are currently at least seven units. Some of them are already pulling out on their own, because there is almost no safe route left. All the roads and tree lines are under enemy control from the air. And what is even more frightening is that every half hour, the city is hit with KAB and FAB bombs. And as a rule, it is not just one or two bombs at a time.
I have a video recorded by a group of marines. In the dark, covered in dirt. But what matters most are their eyes – eyes that seem to be filled with tears. The video was recorded for their commander to show that they could get in touch. Before long, the place where this group was located was hit by a KAB bomb. They were all killed. And it is not known whether it will be possible to find and recover their bodies…
The current task for the units in Pokrovsk is to hold the railway tracks and to cross them to carry out assaults. But more and more groups that could be doing this are left without communications and without an understanding of the situation, because it is becoming increasingly difficult to deliver battery packs for their radios. The enemy is hunting for the locations of our crews that launch large UAVs and is destroying the sites where everything is prepared for delivering what the assault groups need. I know for certain of one such position which, once they had located it, was first attacked with almost a dozen FPV drones, after which a KAB bomb hit it as well – just to be sure. At least one group never received anything...
Our pilots are trying to keep working – flying in supplies, reconnoitring the situation, dropping "gifts" on the enemy. More than that, pilots in those areas are increasingly being forced into small-arms engagements. They are even taking prisoners. Right now, there are two positions in Pokrovsk – one enemy and one ours. Both have prisoners there, ours and Russians. The two positions are separated by about a hundred metres, no more… Neither side can evacuate their prisoners, even though the Russians are driving into the city more and more often in Zhiguli cars and other vehicles. However, our reconnaissance troops also identified four infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) and a tank that entered the city. Before long, the tank and two of the IFVs were destroyed and set ablaze by our forces.
At the same time, in the part of the city that the enemy had taken under control, they had already begun to distribute Russian passports to the locals who had remained in the basements. They did not bring water, food, or medicine, but passports! They bombed the city, destroyed the infrastructure, and "liberated" the people from electricity, gas, mobile communications, water, and heat. And they brought them papers. The fact that the locals remained is confirmed by our soldiers, with whom I recorded conversations. Among them were the very same "waiters" who betrayed the positions of our soldiers. But there were also people who could not bring themselves to abandon what they had accumulated over the years. And when their homes were burned and destroyed, it was impossible not only to leave, but even to go outside...
There are constantly people whose relatives or friends have remained in towns that ended up on the front line. And you hear horrific stories you can do nothing about. Here is one of them. Two families stayed in Pokrovsk, not far from the Shakhtarskyi district. One family’s flat burned down. A KAB bomb hit the house of the other – inside were two men, a father and his son. They were killed there. Casual friends are trying to find the other three members of this family. But how can they be found now? If they are alive, they most likely already have Russian passports…
I constantly ask all the officers I know who understand the situation on the most intense sectors of the front what should be done in this situation: whether it would be better to pull back beyond the cities and hold the front line there, or to keep digging into the urban areas. And I hear the same unequivocal answer: "It is better to fight, especially in winter, in cities. Here we can inflict more losses on the enemy. As soon as we roll back into the fields, they will drive us even further. Because, let’s be honest, there are no fortified positions where we could reliably take up defence. And those that do exist are taken apart by FPV drones almost instantly." They cite Avdiivka as an example, after which the front moved a long way. "What is needed is for the troops fighting in cities to be given everything they need, in sufficient quantities. And they must not be driven to try to regain positions that not only cannot be restored, but do not need to be. Then the fighters would be able to hit the enemy, wearing them down, and hold on to what can still be held," says one of the commanders whose units have been defending Pokrovsk for more than a month.
It would also be good to react in time to enemy breakthroughs. To illustrate this, we are attaching DeepState maps dated 5 November and 4 December. Compare them. You can clearly see how the Russians broke through the flank and are now looming over Huliaipole almost in the same way as they did over Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad. People needed to be sent there back then… But where are they supposed to be found?
The military is not just saying, but shouting, that there are not enough people to defend the country. But no one wants to hear them – especially those who curse staff of the Territorial Centres of Recruitment and Social Support and rejoice at the death of a serviceman in Lviv! Judging by what we see, most citizens of this country would rather go to prison for life for murder or be killed together with their family by a missile in their own home than take up arms to defend against the enemy… With such an attitude to our defenders, we will lose not only Pokrovsk, Myrnohrad and Huliaipole, but the state itself.
Violetta Kirtoka, Censor. NET
