Ukrainian forces are reversing Russia’s attempted breakthrough near Dobropillia. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported on 18 August that Russian troops are struggling to turn their limited infiltration into a deeper advance as Ukrainian counterattacks reclaim settlements and cut off the penetration base.

This comes as Russia continues its all-out war against Ukraine, focusing on capturing the rest of eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast. 

Ukrainian forces retake key settlements

Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets said Ukrainian troops had liberated Zapovidne (formerly Nykanorivka) and Dorozhnie, both southwest of Dobropillia. These villages were at the base of Russia’s push into the area. Geolocated footage published on 14 August and verified on 18 August shows Ukrainian forces detaining Russian soldiers in a windbreak southwest of Petrivka, northeast of Dobropillia. Additional footage published on 17 August shows Ukrainian troops raising a flag in Zolotyi Kolodyaz, confirming they had retaken the area after Russian forces previously entered it.

Russia unable to support or widen the penetration

ISW noted that Russian forces are struggling to turn their initial tactical gains into a wider breakthrough. Colonel Viktor Trehubov of Ukraine’s Dnipro Group of Forces said Ukrainian troops collapsed the Russian salient by cutting off infiltration elements from their main force, preventing supplies and reinforcements from reaching them.

Ukrainian flanks move faster than Russian forces

Mashovets reported that elements of Russia’s 150th Motorized Rifle Division, part of the 8th Combined Arms Army, attempted to bypass Volodymyrivka from the east. The move aimed to flank Ukrainian forces pressing on Russian units of the 51st Combined Arms Army between Zapovidne and Novotoretske. However, Ukrainian forces on the western side of the breach are advancing faster than Russian units in the east.

Russian brigades under pressure inside a narrow corridor

Mashovets said Russian forces inside the penetration — specifically the 5th, 110th, and 132nd Motorized Rifle Brigades — are fracturing under pressure and only holding a 2.5-kilometer-wide strip. A Russian milblogger warned the depth of the advance is too great for such a narrow width, making it vulnerable to counterattacks.

Russian focus shifts to another direction

ISW observed that Russian milbloggers are now focusing on the Rodynske direction, north of Pokrovsk and southeast of Dobropillia. This shift suggests a loss of confidence in the Dobropillia axis after failure to reinforce the original infiltration.

Ukrainian reinforcements are rushing to the Pokrovsk area in an urgent effort to defeat a Russian infiltration that threatens one of two main supply roads into the besieged city in Donetsk Oblast.

The reinforcements include one of Ukraine’s new multi-brigade corps—and at least one Leopard 1A5 tank.

The Ukrainian army’s 508th Separate Repair and Restoration Battalion—which retrieves, repairs and returns armored vehicles—loaded one of the 40-ton, four-person Leopard 1A5 tanks onto a heavy transport truck and hauled the tank into the Pokrovsk sector under the cover of darkness on Wednesday.

“We’ve been a little quiet the last few days,” the battalion stated on social media, “but another Leopard 1A5 with full ammunition … is successfully delivered to one of the hottest places [in the] Pokrovsk direction.”

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It’s obvious where the German-made tank wound up: somewhere along the roughly 10-km front stretching from Rodynske in the south to Nove Shakhove in the north. That front, just northeast of Pokrovsk, is the current locus of the fighting after Russian troops slipped past under-manned—or entirely empty—Ukrainian trenches last week and hooked left to threaten Dobropillya, which sits astride the T0515 road threading into Pokrovsk.

Two of the seven Ukrainian brigades that operate the 1980s-vintage—but heavily upgraded and up-armored—Leopard 1A5s are holding the line around Dobropillya: the national guard’s 4th Rubizh Brigade and the army’s 142nd Mechanized Brigade.

Each brigade probably owns a dozen Leopard 1A5s out of 170 that a German-Dutch-Danish consortium has pledged to Ukraine. Around 100 of the tanks have shipped; the Russians have knocked out at least 14 of them. Others have been damaged.

Repaired tank

It’s likely the Leopard 1A5 the 508th Separate Repair and Restoration Battalion sneaked into the Pokrovsk area was a damaged tank that the battalion fetched from the front line and fixed up at its workshop before hauling it back to its operator.

After losing around 4,000 tanks in action in the first 42 months of its wider war on Ukraine, Russia has all but ceased deploying heavy armor along the 1,100-km front line. Production of new T-90M tanks, and the restoration of old Cold War T-72s moldering in long-term storage, simply can’t make good all those losses.

Today, the Russians mostly attack on foot or on motorcycles, counting on these hard-to-spot and fast-moving forces to slip through thinly manned Ukrainian trenches and past Ukraine’s ever-present drones. The Ukrainians still use tanks, however, fearlessly rolling the hulking vehicles from their drone-proof dugouts for close fights with infiltrating Russians.

It’s not for no reason that, last month, Ukraine lost more tanks in action than Russia did—a first in this wider war.

Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky insisted the Russian infiltrators threatening Dobropillya marched north and then turned west “only with weapons in their hands.” They’re lightly armed and poorly supplied, potentially making them easy targets for tanks. Assuming, of course, the tanks can shrug off any Russian drones patrolling the Russian salient northeast of Pokrovsk.

There’s a good reason for the Ukrainian tankers to be optimistic. The Leopard 1A5 and Leopard 2A4 tanks that are helping to defend the Pokrovsk sector have proved that, with enough add-on armor, they can survive repeated drone strikes—and keep fighting.

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Russian forces are pushing near Dobropillia, Donetsk Oblast, but it is premature to call these gains an operational-level breakthrough, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). The think tank assesses that Moscow’s troops are likely seeking to turn current tactical advances into a broader push in the coming days.

Russian advances southeast of Dobropillia

ISW reported on 11 August that Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups are operating near Dobropillia, northwest of Pokrovsk. A Ukrainian source said such groups are active in the area. NASA FIRMS satellite data indicated heat anomalies west of Nove Shakhove, in Novyi Donbas, Bilytske, and Rodynske — suggesting artillery fire in these areas.

The think tank assessed that Russian forces likely seized several settlements southeast of Dobropillya, including Razine, Sukhetske, Fedorivka, Zatyshok, Boikivka, Novotoretske, and Zapovidne, as well as Mayak and Pankivka east of Dobropillia. Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed its troops took Fedorivka, northeast of Pokrovsk. Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets reported forward Russian assault units and infiltration groups operating near Kucheriv Yar, Nove Shakhove, and Bilytske.

Contested zones and advancing lines

Russian military bloggers claimed Moscow’s forces seized Dorozhnie, advanced north of Zapovidne, south of Bilytske, south of Dorozhnie, west of Shakhove, and southeast of Vilne toward Nove Shakhove. Other claimed gains included areas south of Kucheriv Yar and on the outskirts of Zolotyi Kolodyaz.

One milblogger said Russian forces control about half of Volodymyrivka, south of Shakhove, while Ukrainian troops hold northern Pankivka. The same source claimed Russian troops have interdicted a 2.5-kilometer section of the T-0515 Pokrovsk–Dobropillya highway. Another milblogger described Kucheriv Yar and Zolotyi Kolodyaz as contested “gray zones,” with Russian reconnaissance-in-force missions underway.

ISW sees potential for bigger gains

ISW stressed it is too early to declare these moves an operational-level breakthrough. However, the think tank noted Russian forces may attempt to mature these tactical penetrations into a larger offensive in the coming days, similar to the approach used in mid-April 2024 that led to the seizure of operationally significant territory northwest of Avdiivka.

The institute said the next several days will be critical for Ukraine’s ability to prevent accelerated Russian gains north and northwest of Pokrovsk.

The coal village Rodynske itself isn’t the objective. The objective is the much larger settlement, with a pre-war population of 60,000, that lies 10 km to the southwest: Pokrovsk, once an important transportation hub for Ukrainian forces in Donetsk.

“A larger push to seize Pokrovsk is expected, potentially with instructions to accelerate its capture” from the Kremlin, the Ukrainian Frontelligence Insight analysis group explained. “The Rodynske area remains a focal point.”

A powerful Russian force numbering 100,000 troops is determined to capture Pokrovsk. But the town is heavily defended by drones, artillery, infantry and even a few Leopard 2A4 tanks belonging to the bad-luck 155th Mechanized Brigade.

So instead, the Russians are trying to surround and cut off Pokrovsk. And that means capturing Rodynske—and then cutting west across the main north-south road, the T0515, threading past Dobropillya and Rodynske into Pokrovsk. There’s only one other main road into Pokrovsk, just west of the town—and it’s in danger of being overrun, too.

The Russian Center Group of Forces, including the 51st Combined Arms Army, spent a year marching on Pokrovsk from the ruins of Avdiivka, 40 km to the east. It was a costly march, and it ground to halt on Pokrovsk’s outskirts around the New Year. But the Kremlin mobilized hundreds of thousands of fresh troops, and deployed many of them to the Pokrovsk sector.

Speeding into battle on motorcycles or marching on foot, the Russians suffered horrendous casualties while probing Pokrovsk’s defenses. But the effort paid off last month, when the Russian 9th Motor Rifle Brigade or an adjacent unit finally found a wide gap in the Ukrainian line around Rodynske. The undermanned Ukrainian national guard brigades defending Rodynske fell back.

Now Rodynske itself is the main battleground. While the Russian air force’s KAB glide-bombs pummel the village, the 51st CAA waits for a chance to advance. “The command of the enemy’s Center Operational Grouping on the Pokrovsk direction completes preparatory actions, actively accelerating preparations for the assault on Pokrovsk,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies reported.

“Northeast of Pokrovsk, the enemy will continue attacks with the forces of the 51st Combined Arms Army in the direction of Rodynske from both Fedorivka and Razyne, at the same time trying to break through as close as possible to Dobropillya,” 65 km to the north, CDS added.

“As soon as the 51st Combined Arms Army blocks communications from Pokrovsk to Dobropillya, the enemy will proceed to assault Pokrovsk with the forces of the 41st and 2nd Combined Arms Armies.”

The push through Rodynske and then into Pokrovsk will be a bloody one for both sides, but especially for the Russians. “We anticipate a spike in Russian losses,” Frontelligence Insight explained, “but also the possibility of a faster tempo of advances.”

Reinforcements rush in

Aiming to delay Pokrovsk’s fall as long as possible, and inflict as many casualties as possible on the Russians in exchange for the town, the Ukrainian army has reinforced the area around Rodynske with elements of the 142nd Mechanized Brigade, which recently received German-made Leopard 1A5 tanks.

Even with reinforcements, the Ukrainian force in and around Pokrovsk is outnumbered by tens of thousands of troops. Where Russia has maintained its high pace of recruitment by spending lavishly on enlistment bonuses, Ukraine has struggled to recruit or draft enough new troops for its weary brigades.

The Russian military is actually slowly growing by around 9,000 soldiers a month as new recruits exceed casualties. The Ukrainian military, by contrast, is short around 100,000 trained infantry. As long as the Ukrainians are badly outnumbered on the Pokrovsk sector, the battle’s outcome is all but certain.

Rodynske will fall—and then Pokrovsk will, too.

But that doesn’t mean the Russians are galloping to victory in Ukraine. They’re struggling to merely capture the eastern Donbas region, of which Pokrovsk is just a small part. “We assess that a complete Russian takeover of Donbas in 2025 is very unlikely,” Frontelligence Insight stated. “Conditions around Kupiansk, Siversk and Lyman remain unfavorable for Ukrainian defenders, but Russian operational goals have not been met and progress is behind the timetable.”

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