Roman Podgorely, an analyst and co-founder of the DeepState monitoring service, spoke on Radio NV about the occupation of Pokrovsk and Mirnograd in the Donetsk region. The video was published on YouTube on May 21.
The journalist noticed that the topic of Pokrovsk has recently dropped out of the information space, despite the fact that active hostilities around the city do not subside, and the map of DeepState, which cooperates with the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, indicates that Pokrovsk and Mirnograd are now in the red zone. After that, he asked Podgorenny what was really going on.
“Pokrovsk and Mirnograd are occupied,” the analyst replied.
He explained that before changing the map, the service sought confirmation of this information. Podgorely called the presence of fighters in positions in such critical circumstances, in critical terrain in Pokrovsk, “absolutely incomprehensible.”
“Because, unfortunately, the high military command, in particular the commander-in-chief, sees that we somehow still have to recapture and hold these cities, although it is high time to admit that they are occupied. The enemy is actively moving his forces there. The enemy is actively building up his infantry there in large numbers, and this is a big city, it’s even difficult to knock them out. Equipment, artillery, which has long been stationed, in particular, on the southern outskirts, that Mirnograd and Pokrovsk, which operates further down the line of combat,” said the co-founder of DeepState.
In turn, the senior officer of the communications department of the 7th Rapid Reaction Corps of the DShV, Lieutenant Sergei Lefter, in a commentary to hromadske, denied this information. He assured that the defensive operation in Pokrovsk continues, and the defense forces still hold separate positions on the northern outskirts of the city.
One of the officers of the 25th Airborne Brigade also told the media that there are still Ukrainian positions in Pokrovsk.
“In reality, there are positions, in reality there are people. We see them, we feed them, we see how they run out and pick up their packages or fire at the enemy somewhere. They also transmit information about what they hear, what they see, and in accordance with this we can inflict fire damage,” said the journalists’ interlocutor.
