When the clip of Putin's “Mad Max infantry” entering Pokrovsk was filmed. Testimony of a drone pilot

Footage that has gone viral captures a convoy of Russian motorcycles and doorless cars driving through thick fog and heading towards the city of Pokrovsk. The footage was shot on the southern outskirts of the city on the Selidove-Pokrovsk highway, according to the BBC, which has verified the location.

Foggy conditions allowed Russian troops to penetrate in greater numbers and deeper into the strategic city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine.

The 7th Air Assault Corps confirmed that weather conditions, particularly dense fog, favored offensive efforts by Moscow, which took the opportunity to send more troops into the ruined city to complete the encirclement of Ukrainian forces.

According to Ukrainian military estimates, between 300-500 Russians may now be in the city.

“The Russians have entered the city,” Oleksi Goncearenko wrote on Telegram after video emerged of Russian forces entering the city under the cover of fog in a motley convoy of motorcycles, cars and other improvised vehicles filled with soldiers.

“The situation there is difficult, especially because of weather conditions that favor attacks. But we continue to destroy the occupier. And I thank each of our units, each soldier who is involved in protecting Ukrainian positions,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday.

For several days, fog has reduced visibility for effective aerial reconnaissance, says a drone pilot with the call sign “Goose” from the “Shershni Dovbusha” unit of the 68th brigade.

He told the BBC that it was for this reason that the Russians “dared” to launch attacks using a convoy of vehicles, which would normally have been immediately liquidated by Ukrainian drones.

The Ukrainian drone pilot told the BBC that his unit regularly detected and eliminated small groups of Russians trying to advance on foot and on motorbikes. He added that the operators also took part in repelling the convoy in the viral video, which is said to have been filmed on Sunday.

The convoy was partially destroyed, Goose claims, but explains that due to weather conditions, the moment could not be documented on video, so he cannot know for sure if the entire group was hit.

Russian troops appear to be closing in on most areas of Pokrovsk, according to mapping by monitoring group DeepState. Some observers say that the collapse of the defenses and the fall of the city to the Russians is imminent.

Moscow is trying to encircle Pokrovsk and the neighboring town of Mîrnohrad by trying to envelop them in a “cauldron”.

To prevent it, Ukrainian troops pushed back Russian troops from Suvorove and Rodinske, in the eastern part of the “Cauldron”, deepening the gap between the Russian flanks.

Ukraine launches counterattacks

Ukrainian army chief Oleksandr Sîrski warned on Monday that Russia was massing some 150,000 troops, including mechanized groups, in a concentrated effort to capture the city of Pokrovsk.

The general explained that Ukrainian forces are using urban areas to limit the advance of Russian troops.

“There are battles and fighting going on. The enemy is making quick maneuvers all the time,” he told The New York Post, adding that the perception that Russia “is about to end the battle is not true,” he said.

The devastated city appears almost encircled, with only a narrow corridor through which supplies and reinforcements can be brought in, according to a map of the battlefield produced by DeepState, an analysis group with ties to the Ukrainian military.

Russian forces have also secured two narrow corridors to the city center from the south and west, according to the map, which shows the rest of Pokrovsk in a vast gray area.

The fiercest fighting is wreaking havoc in the northern districts of Pokrovsk, with the city's industrial area the hardest hit.

Ukraine is “struggling” but still managing to clear some areas in the north, while mounting counterattacks in the city and its western outskirts, slowing Russia's advance, according to the Institute for the Study of War's latest report.