The railway bridge north-west of Pokrovsk on the road to Pavlohrad and Dnipro was attacked during the night. It is now closed to traffic. A few days after the last train left, the bombing of the motorway bridge forced residents fleeing Pokrovsk by car or by buses provided to them along a dirt road riddled with potholes and clouds of dust.
In a country that has been attacked across its territory by dozens of missiles, rockets and drones fired by its powerful Russian neighbour for the past two and a half years, the worst is expected when the artillery comes into action. This is a sign that the enemy is getting dangerously close. After the cities where the Russian army was defeated (in the northern districts of kyiv or Kharkiv) or others that were conquered (from Mariupol to Sievierodonetsk, Lyssytchansk, Bakhmut or Avdiïvka), it is up to Pokrovsk to fear the fate that the artillerymen may inflict on it.
“The enemy is 7 kilometers from Pokrovsk”The governor of the Donetsk region, Vadym Filashkin, confirmed on Monday, September 9, that his services are coordinating with the police the evacuation of civilians and that he has ordered a strict curfew from 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 a.m., as in every city or town in the province located less than 10 kilometers from Russian forces.
As is often the case with officials from warring regions, who wish not to reveal their place of work for security reasons, Governor Filashkin arranged a meeting in a park. Returning from a visit to the south of the region, where Moscow’s army is stepping up its military offensive to try to take Pokrovsk by force, he finds himself that day in Kramatorsk, the “capital” of Donbass not occupied by Russian forces.
With a martial air and smiling eyes, Vadym Filashkin confesses “a difficult situation”, but claims that the Ukrainian army is “Everything possible to prevent Pokrovsk from falling”Contrary to the criticism often heard among the fighters about the fragility of the defense lines and the lack of preparation of the command for Russian offensives, the governor claims that “reinforcement [civils] They came from all over Ukraine to build defense lines » in the rear, and thus lend a hand to the soldiers who are building fortifications and digging trenches near the fronts. In Pokrovsk this defensive effort is not currently perceptible, which does not mean that it is not real, far from the city.
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