The Russian army could capture Pokrovsk as early as September, – The Telegraph reported

Ukraine has deployed elite units from the Donbas region to launch an offensive in the Kursk region of Russia. As a result, Russian advances in the Donetsk region have accelerated, and the Russians may capture the city of Pokrovsk as early as September.

This information was reported by The Telegraph.

“I’ve never seen such speed. It’s very fast. And we have the same problem: we don’t have enough infantry, we lack sufficient artillery or shells. We don’t have enough drones. The enemy has deployed powerful electronic warfare units, so sometimes we have to launch 10, 12, 15 drones just to destroy one tank,” said a commander of a Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance unit fighting near Pokrovsk in an interview with the publication.

In his view, the Russians “will be in Pokrovsk by mid-September.” This assessment is shared by the Ukrainian “Center for Defense Strategies.”

Over the past three weeks, the Russians have advanced at least five miles (eight kilometers) towards the city, moving along a railway line that provides cover for their infantry.

“Pokrovsk is closing in like an organism that knows death is near,” The Telegraph reports, commenting on the evacuation from the city.

“This desperate situation appears to be a direct result of Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk in early August. This operation, planned by General Oleksandr Syrskyi and approved by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was intended to divert Russian forces from this front. The Commander-in-Chief acknowledged this week that the Russians did not take the bait. While they did move thousands of troops from other parts of the line to Kursk, they doubled their forces on the Pokrovsk front,” the publication writes.

It challenges Zelenskyy’s claim that the Russians were advancing faster near Pokrovsk before the Kursk operation. However, this is contradicted by the Ukrainian officers interviewed by the newspaper.

Earlier, Bild military expert Julian Röpcke suggested that the entire central sector of the Donetsk front held by Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) is at risk of collapsing due to the “domino effect” in the Pokrovsk area.