https://archive.is/cPkuS#selection-1067.0-1070.0Quote
Ukraine’s withdrawal from Avdiivka in February and a bungled rotation in nearby Ocheretyne in May set the stage for the charge on Pokrovsk. Russia is now 10km from the town. At the station platform, the sound of sobbing competes with squeaks from pets squeezed into bags and boxes for the journey west. One question is enough to trigger tears. Yulia Kostynova breaks down as she recalls how a Russian bomb on August 11th destroyed the meat-processing plant were she worked. “Constant stress, explosions, doors and windows that blow open by the shock waves,” she says. “Everything inside you tightens. You hear the rocket, and you wait, and you ask if it will land near you and your home.”
Ukrainian commanders give different reasons for the Russian advance. Some say there aren’t enough shells, with the enemy firing up to ten times as many. Others point to Russian tactics—small infantry assaults, glide bombs, new types of electronic warfare. But exhaustion and manpower issues seem to be at the heart of the collapse. “People aren’t made of steel,” says Colonel Pavlo Fedosenko. Ukrainian troops, outnumbered 4:1, aren’t getting any rest, he says. Some stay on the front lines for 30 or 40 days at a time, cramped in foxholes inches from death. “Dublin,” a fighter attached to the 59th brigade south-east of Pokrovsk, knows soldiers who have been in place for more than two months. Two had strokes. Ukraine’s problems are compounded by “idiotic” orders, he says.
Ukraine’s surprise mini-invasion of Russia provokes mixed feelings. Dublin says early successes lifted morale. But it didn’t last. The hope that Russia might respond by moving troops from Pokrovsk has been supplanted by the realisation that it has not. Ukrainian security sources confirm that while Russia has moved troops from other sections of the eastern front line, it reinforced around Pokrovsk. Ukraine meanwhile redeployed special forces units to Kursk, and is patching up the Pokrovsk front with untested formations. “The Russians have figured things out and aren’t taking the bait,” complains Dublin.