Ukrainian “road cutter” drones are strangling Russian supply lines around Pokrovsk, effectively halting a year-long offensive and forcing Russian commanders to shift their focus elsewhere, Forbes reports.

The Conflict Intelligence Team, a Russian anti-Kremlin analysis group, says the Russian assault on Donetsk Oblast’s Pokrovsk “continues to stall” as Ukrainian brigades recently counterattacked a few kilometers south of the city, recapturing terrain around the village of Lysivka. This successful operation has expanded the defensive buffer around Pokrovsk, following a similar Ukrainian counterattack earlier in February on the western side of the city.

Despite some Russian advances around the village of Baranivka, 25 km east of Pokrovsk, the overall Russian momentum on the axis between Avdiivka and Pokrovsk has significantly deteriorated. This axis has been central to Russian war plans for more than a year.

The Russian Center Grouping of Forces – approximately 50,000 troops plus thousands of vehicles – began their push toward Pokrovsk after capturing Avdiivka last February.

The Russians reached Pokrovsk’s suburbs late last year but were met with a formidable wall of Ukrainian drones. Russian sources attribute their slowdown to “the increased concentration of Ukrainian forces, particularly drone units,” the Conflict Intelligence Team reports. Ukrainian jamming technology has proven effective against most Russian drones, with only fiber-optic models controlled by wire remaining operational. 

“Road-cutter” drones

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently stated that Ukraine produced 2.2 million explosive first-person-view drones last year and aims to manufacture even more this year.

The most significant impact has come from Ukrainian “road-cutter” drones that fly miles behind the front lines to hunt Russian supply trucks on roads leading to Pokrovsk. These operations have turned the Ocheretyne-Prohres road into a graveyard of Russian vehicles, with Ukrainian forces repeatedly targeting the same chokepoints to create traffic-impeding piles of wreckage.

These attacks “have significantly complicated logistics for the Russian armed forces,” according to the Conflict Intelligence Team.

ISW: Russian advance near Donetsk’s Pokrovsk slows as focus may shift to Kostiantynivka in 2025

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• ISW: Russian advance near Donetsk’s Pokrovsk slows as focus may shift to Kostiantynivka in 2025