“In the coming hours, the fate of the remaining 29% of Donetsk region under Ukraine’s control will be decided”, – Röpcke

Events near Pokrovsk are rapidly developing to the disadvantage of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, and the fate of the remaining 29% of Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control could be decided not in days but in hours.

This opinion was expressed on X by Julian Röpcke, a military observer for the German tabloid Bild.

According to his assessment, the depth of the Russian breakthrough north of Pokrovsk is around 18 km (previously reported as 10–12 km), which allows Russian forces to reach the highway from Dnipro to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

Röpcke estimates that Ukraine’s forces have only a few days to retake this territory before Russia deploys drones and mechanized units to the area, which would secure and hold the captured positions.

In that case, the last two major cities of Donbas — Sloviansk and Kramatorsk — would be cut off from Dnipro and could only receive supplies via Kharkiv. Ukraine would then be “unlikely to hold the region in the long term.”

If the breakthrough is not eliminated, “the chain of overly thin front-line sectors and further territorial losses will continue and accelerate,” Röpcke writes. Russia could also withdraw its condition of Ukrainian Armed Forces pulling out of Donbas in exchange for a ceasefire in other areas.