Today, there are important updates from the Pokrovsk direction in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast.
Russian column burned after fog clears
Here, the Russians believed their own headlines and thought they had finally secured a way to approach Pokrovsk safely. Under the guise of bad weather, they managed to shoot a symbolic video, but a few moments later they were in for a nasty surprise from the Ukrainian drone operators.
A widely circulated Russian video showed a long column of reinforcements advancing toward the town through the morning fog, parading unopposed and projecting confidence, as if a secure ground line of communication is established (it occurred on 10 November 2025, — Ed.).
Despite this, even Russian analysts admitted that such a movement is only possible under extremely thick fog and poor visibility; otherwise, every vehicle would be immediately detected and destroyed by Ukrainian FPV strikes.
The Russians used the fog as a cloak to sneak through what they hoped would be a safe corridor, but their illusion of safety didn’t last long, while their footage alone doesn’t tell the whole story of how things developed and why the Russian command chose this tactic.
When the fog lifted, the truth came crashing down, because as it turned out, Ukrainian drone operators immediately spotted Russians on the road and began the hunt. Geolocated footage shows the Russian parade column being torn apart within minutes, with the motorcycles filmed earlier now burning in the streets.
At least a dozen vehicles and buggies were destroyed, their explosions lighting up the ruins of southern Pokrovsk, and once Ukrainian operators locked on to their targets, there was nowhere to hide.
Drones hunt survivors in a death trap
The few survivors faced a nightmare of their own, as Pokrovsk has become a death trap for Russian infiltrators, where any sign of life is hunted down by Ukrainian drones. Ukrainian operators now coordinate multiple drones in real-time, as confirmed in the video of Russian soldiers hiding in a building, which filmed their last moments in panic.
Two Ukrainian drones strike the entrance, creating an opening for a third that flies inside and explodes near a Russian soldier, mortally wounding him as he tries to apply a questionable red rubber tourniquet, visible on many dead Russian soldiers. Another drone recording shows operators scanning the ruins for heat signatures — hunting isolated Russian groups that may have slipped in under the fog.
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Command gamble ends in massacre
The Russian column that was sent to show control had been doomed from the start, as officers forced their troops to take a high-risk route, dangerously exposed to Ukrainian fire from Myrnohrad. They believed that if they reached Pokrovsk intact, they’d prove that the area was fully secured, as claimed by Russian military analysts. But it was a mistake without military logic that turned fatal, with soldiers getting massacred following a suicidal order.
A second Russian video, filmed by a shell-shocked soldier, confirms it, as he cries into the camera that Pokrovsk is a kill zone. He complains that there’s no shelter, no coordination, corpses everywhere, and everything is chaos. His tone reflects the state of an army without cohesion, trapped between Ukrainian fire and their own commanders’ cruelty.
Russians trapped in mined ruin
According to the Ukrainian 7th Air Assault Corps, there are over 300 Russians currently in Pokrovsk, with their goal remaining to reach the northern borders of Pokrovsk and attempt to encircle the agglomeration with Myrnohrad. Russian sources claim other numbers, but in any case, those inside are cut off, dying slowly in what has become a kill zone and a war of shadows, in which even an entire street or forest patch might be held by two men and two hundred drones. Meanwhile, Ukrainian engineers continue to mine every approach, with another Russian video capturing the moment a tank drives toward a firing position near Pokrovsk, only to detonate a mine seconds after entering the open. The explosion sends debris flying, a reminder that no Russian vehicle, be it tank or motorcycle, can move freely near the town, with each attempt to push supplies or reinforcements ending in destruction.
Pokrovsk becomes a modern kill zone
Overall, the Ukrainian defense has turned Pokrovsk into a kill zone, the same way the fields south of it once were. The Ukrainian army maintains its strategy to contain the Russians below the railway line, deny them movement, and annihilate everything that approaches the town. By combining precision drone warfare with relentless mining operations, the defenders have turned Pokrovsk into a trap that consumes every Russian soldier who dares to enter it.
In our regular frontline report, we pair up with the military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to keep you informed about what is happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.
