Lawfare Daily: The Looming Fall of Pokrovsk

[Intro]

Francis Farrell: Over the last few months, I think since that July when we were there, the situation has slowly deteriorated. And now it's really falling apart. I think we're definitely in the final act of the Battle of Pokrovsk as we speak, and in, in the next few weeks, I think the city will probably fall, unfortunately.

Anastasiia Lapatina: It is the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Anastasiia Lapatina, Ukraine fellow at Lawfare, with Francis Farrell, a frontline reporter at the Kyiv Independent.

Francis Farrell: So you know, giving that away for free to Russia just in exchange for a promise that they won't attack again and they won't keep going, is ridiculous. You speak to any Ukrainian soldier who's fought for years in Donbas, and they say ‘we will simply not accept such orders to withdraw from Donbas.’

Anastasiia Lapatina: I sat down with Francis to discuss the looming fall of Pokrovsk, how the frontline has transformed into a kill zone, and whether Ukraine could succumb to Russian demands and give up Donbas.

[Main episode]

Francis, you were recently in several areas along the frontline in Ukraine's East. Tell us about that trip of yours.

Francis Farrell: Hi. It's good to be here.

So yeah, I was in eastern Ukraine in frontline areas you could say about a month ago, unlike most trips where we always somehow end up in Donetsk Oblast in the Donbas region, because that's just ends up being that the place where the hottest fighting is happening.

This time we decided to focus more on the city of Kup’yans’k in Kharkhiv Oblast further north, and this is a bit of a sad milestone to see fighting return to the city of Kup’yans’k, because I remember going there just over three years ago not long after it was liberated in Ukraine's stunning September 2022 Kharkhiv counteroffensive.

And, you know, it was a bit beat up at the time, but you know, it was all on, on a kind of positive wave that, we’re thinking that Ukrainian forces would go further and further. And now it looks likely to be the largest city so far that was occupied once, then liberated, and now going to be occupied again.

But this time the occupation comes with a lot of brutal, heavy fighting, a lot of destruction, and probably Kup’yans’k is not going to see a future return to it for the next few decades, at least.

I might be wrong, but it's pretty grim. It's also an area that became one of the hotspots on the front line just a few months ago, when Russian forces kind of broke into the city, actual urban area, coming down from the north.

There was a big strategic river, the Oskil River, flowing north to south, which lots of people thought would be the natural barrier along which Ukraine would be defending if they were pushed out from the other side. But the Russians crossed that river about a year ago, and then slowly, you know, held onto a little bit and slowly made a bit of progress.

But just over the last few months, they made a lot more progress using a lot of their infiltration tactics, which we'll talk a lot about, I think, and broke into the city itself. And they also had the help, this time, of the famous pipeline running under the river, which led them kind of infiltrate through and come out behind Ukrainian lines. And things kind of fell into a pretty chaotic state in the city fighting.

The Russians have now seemingly overrun most of the city center, but the situation is still more or less under control. Like not ideal, but certainly not falling out of control like other parts of the frontline. I also visited, so I was with an artillery team, a drone team there. And that's always good because you can actually see the fighting happen on the screens in front of you.

If you're at a command point, you can see everything that the commanders see, all of the drones in the air, and you can have them explain like, this is a maverick. This is what the maverick can see. This is how the Russians are moving forward in these bushes, in these tree lines. This is a Russian FPV, which we've actually intercepted the signal of, so we're watching it, and now since we've seen it coming in our direction, we're warning everyone else to basically keep the head down and get undercover.

So that was really fascinating. And then the other trip was a two day in-bed with some foreign fighters in Donbas, in Kostiantynivka, which was extremely uneventful.

They were flying drones, just watching the front line constantly. Not really seeing much action at that point. And then, in the last 10 minutes, some drones flew above our head. The guys ran out with their rifles shooting them down. One of them dropped a bomb nearby, but we got out. It was a, it was all okay.

You can see both videos from those trips on our YouTube channel. I also wrote a report from Kup’yans’k, but yeah, it it's always important to, to get out there, I think semi-regularly at least because, as we know with the advancements in the tactics and drone warfare specifically, things change about every two months, actually.

Anastasiia Lapatina: So one Ukrainian city that's been in the news a lot recently is the city of Pokrovsk. Can you just tell us a bit about the situation there and perhaps also mention some of your last trips there? I know you've been there somewhat recently, so what's it like? What's happening?

Francis Farrell: Yeah, so for those who may not know, Pokrovsk is one of the main, you could say, fortress cities that has been one of the main sites of the fighting in Donbas, in Donetsk Oblast, over the last year. It was about a year ago that the Russians during an offensive that was moving very fast at the time, they reached the outskirts of Pokrovsk. And at the time, it looked really bad. It looked like they could surround, it, looked like they could overrun it over that winter.

But it stabilized over winter, you know, the Ukrainian defense there turned out to be very strong and Pokrovsk was holding for a very long time over a year. I was there in summer this year at a point where it was already getting really quite dangerous to get in and out of the city. All of the roads in and out were in the range of Russian FPV drones of all ranges and types.

And our car was also hunted by a drone on the way out. But then it––I don't know, it went off course, it was jammed, but then over the last few months, I think since that July when we were there, the situation has slowly deteriorated. And now it's really falling apart, I think where we're definitely in the final act of the Battle of Pokrovsk as we speak. And in, in the next few weeks, I think the city will probably fall, unfortunately.

Back in July there was a smaller Russian infiltration of about a few dozen Russian forces, maybe a hundred even, that made it into the southern neighborhood of Pokrovsk. But at the time the rest of the defense was still stable, was still holding, and the Ukrainians were able to quickly deploy some, you know, more elite assault and like clearing special forces to get those to clear the city out and to restore the stability of the defensive lines.

This time, a similar Russian infiltration has broken through to the city from the south, but it's much larger and the situation for the defense is much more difficult and to be honest, quite chaotic. And now at this point, we can be sure that there are hundreds of Russian soldiers walking around Pokrovsk in small groups, taking cover, digging in, moving further forward, waiting for reinforcements, trying to find and ambush Ukrainian units in the area.

And it's definitely a very quick deterioration of the defense of the city. Pokrovsk itself isn't encircled per se, it's just being kind of seeped through with Russian soldiers as we speak. The neighboring city of Myrnohrad––which is deeper inside the pocket on the map, if you have a look at where Pokrovsk is––the lines there are actually holding quite firm.

But the problem is that because it's deeper inside the pocket and behind Pokrovsk is falling, they are the ones that are more in danger of an actual encirclement at the moment. Things are very dynamic, things are moving very fast, but it's definitely yeah, looking like the end for Pokrovsk.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Are there any specific reasons, you know, operational, strategic blunders on the Ukrainian side that led to this situation?

Or is it just a product of, you know, the natural state of Ukraine being outnumbered by Russia?

Francis Farrell: Yeah, I mean, war is a very messy thing. And, you know, mistakes are made in general, I think when we look back on Pokrovsk, we'll say that the city has done its job as being a really strong fortress. Which has, you know, stopped further Russian advances and held them for over a year at a very high cost.

And the soldiers, you know, it's not always Ukraine's elite soldiers who've been defending this city. It's sometimes standard mechanized brigades. It's the 155th mechanized brigade, which is the one that had hundreds of people go AWOL after, I think before training in France.

Just standard Ukrainian units, you know, backed by some strong drone teams. But, you know, eventually the fighting at this intensity with so many Russian drones in the air has taken its toll. And the two ways you notice that is once again, Pokrovsk has been in a pocket for quite a while with all of the logistics routes going in and out being controlled by Russian drones, including FPV drones, as well as fixed wing Molniya drones, just spotting and hitting whatever they can, laying ambushes along the road. Fiber optic drones that are, you know, immune to jamming. It's very difficult for any military to deal deal with this. In the meantime, we also know that Ukraine's manpower crisis has not gotten better, especially in the infantry.

They are basically, most brigades are very under strength when it comes to their ability to cover the front line with enough combat effective infantry. And what that means in practice is that they're just simply these large holes that end up opening opening up between their frontline positions.

And so the combination of the Russian chokehold of the logistics routes going in and out and the infantry line, you know, really thinning out and these holes opening up, it's pretty hard to imagine like, you know, what can be done better in terms of dealing with this tactical challenge.

A lot of things could be of course, but now the greater problem is the fact that we could see a very very costly, and to be honest, very tragic repetition of a common mistake of the Ukrainian high command, which is to refuse to order a timely withdrawal from cities that are practically surrounded.

We've seen this in Bakhmut. We saw this in, you know, where the withdrawal at the end were, was really chaotic and costly. But Pokrovsk has the potential, unfortunately, to be a lot worse because of this new level of Russian drone saturation in the air, just really controlling every road in and out of this city.

From the Ukrainian soldiers I've spoken to fighting in that area, they say they do not go on vehicles anymore at all. They're going on foot, and that's whether they're infantry or a drone team or whatever, they're going on foot in and out. And so it's just really tough. And if the time comes, I mean. You couldn't make the argument that the time is there for a withdrawal order already.

We're not seeing that. It's a famous problem of the Ukrainian command: never take a step bac,k hold this house or this street at whatever cost, but that's something to look out for.

Anastasiia Lapatina: We know from your reporting and the writing of some of your colleagues as well, that the frontline in Ukraine isn't really a line anymore, and not a frontline in the way that people imagine it.

It's more of a kill zone, as we call it in Ukraine. Could you describe that distinction and explain what that really means for the type of fighting that's being waged right now?

Francis Farrell: Yeah, so I mean, Pokrovsk is a good example of what the consequences are of this frontline not really existing anymore. But it's important to understand how we got here, I guess.

And once again, the two main factors are, first, the increasing saturation of drones at all distances going further back, but especially in that very close frontline zone. So even a year and a half ago, it was possible to, you know, there were drones in the air, it was dangerous, you should have like electronic warfare, so on, but it was still possible to drive all the way up to frontline positions, quickly drop off your infantry, conduct a rotation, bring resupplies, and then drive out.

None of that is, is possible at this point. Vehicles are being hit regularly, even at a distance of 10 and 15 kilometers back from the front line, which is like the dividing line between both sides, but. The infantry soldiers now have to walk, very often, you know, 10, 15 kilometers just to get to the frontline positions.

Once they're there, they are often there, not for a few days, not for a few weeks, but often more like for a few months, just two or three guys, maybe even just one in, in a hole trying to survive. Not really able to even put his head above ground to actually engage in firefights, because then he'll be spotted by a drone and targeted.

And so at every step of the way, you know, whether we're talking about the really close like one, two kilometer zone or five kilometers back, that's all being hunted by drones, 10 kilometers back. It's maybe a little bit safer, but it's still in drone range. And all that happening at the same time, as, you know, Ukraine being very low on infantry, mainly because the battlefield is getting so much deadlier.

And so when, previously, you know, even a year or two ago, you could think of the frontline as like, here is a line of Ukrainian positions you know, evenly spaced, and they've all got like five, five or six guys on them. And then there's no man's land like in World War I and there all the, then there's the line of Russian positions.

Now, as you mentioned there, instead of a front line, there is this kind of contact zone, like this gray contact zone where you can mark on the map there are two Ukrainian guys in a hole over here. There are two Russian guys in a hole here. There are two Ukrainian soldiers in a basement here.

But they can be overlapping, they can be kind of crisscrossing each other. And that state of existence can go on for weeks and months at a time. And that's the result of these two kill zones, the Ukrainian kill zone, going back into the Russian rear, and the Russian kill zone, going back into the Ukrainian rear, the sky full of drones on both sides, just trying to hit anything that moves.

And this is the future of what a positional fight like this looks like in the era of drones.

Anastasiia Lapatina: I want to talk about another recent report that we've done about Dobropillia, and the lessons of Dobropillia. We haven't covered that at least on Lawfare here, so I think we should talk about it.

So, in August there was this very worrying sudden breakthrough on the front line, a Russian breakthrough, 15 kilometers deep in the direction of the village of Dobropillia

And it spread a lot of panic when it happened. It looked terrible on the map and it also aligned with a lot of this diplomatic activity. So it was really worrying to see sort of the Russians gaining sudden momentum and sort of increasing the leverage that they have in the peace negotiations. Can you just take us back to that a little bit and describe what that what that was, how it happened, and what are the lessons that Ukraine has or hasn't learned from that experience?

Francis Farrell: I think I would start by framing it actually in the international context, because I think the Dobropillia kind of incident or breach or breakthrough, whatever you want to call it, first and foremost, it's a reminder of a few things. If we start with, in the international context, it's a reminder, you know, people were saying that Russia launched this attack deliberately to line up with the Alaska meeting.

It could be true, we don't know, but it is a reminder that the most important factor of how negotiations go is the frontline. The strongest card Ukraine can have in negotiations is a stable frontline. The strongest card that Russia can have is a frontline where they’re moving forward faster and faster and Ukrainian lines are hypothetically collapsing.

And in reality, over 2024 and especially 2025, we're really, kind of, on the borderline between those. And it's like a needle that could go either way. And Dobropillia is a good example of that. If that was, you know, exploited, developed into a bigger breakthrough, then Ukraine would be under a lot of pressure politically.

But on top of that, it's also a reminder that. It could have been aligned with the Alaska meeting, but at the same time, all of the circumstances that allowed this to happen on the front line existed on their own without this outside influence.

And what happened was several hundred, perhaps even more than a thousand, Russian soldiers infiltrating past Ukrainian lines. And not doing what they normally do normally, you know, because of this kill zone, this dense kill zone that we talked about, normally they've been moving forward in small infantry groups with the main objective of just getting past that kill zone.

And then once you do get past that kill zone, you try and dig in, you try and assault the Ukrainian positions and clear them and that's how you take territory. But this time they seem to have a very clear directive to not only sneak past the kill zone, but then to go as deep as possible, as deep as possible into the Ukrainian rear.

And that's why we see, you know, across the front line, we've heard stories of Russians infiltrating past and maybe making it two or three kilometers back, maybe causing some problems, causing some chaos. But here, just on foot, they made it about, more than 15 kilometers, as you mentioned, behind the Ukrainian lines.

Anastasiia Lapatina: And it's worth mentioning that a thousand people, that's a, that's not a small amount, right? That's not a very sneaky group for the front line.

Francis Farrell: It's not a small amount, but they move in sneaky groups. It sounds weird, but they move in groups of one, two, or three. Just very, you know, slowly sometimes, you know, through tree lines, using the cover of the foliage above them or through a field.

I heard a commander telling me that they saw one Russian soldier moving 50 meters at a time. He had a, like a camouflage poncho on, and he just moves 50 meters and then he lay down for half an hour. Then he moved another 50 meters, and this sounds crazy, but here the emphasis when we're talking about infiltration tactics, the emphasis really is on being sneaky.

And once they make it past the Ukrainian infantry positions, which as I mentioned are increasingly thinly spread out, then they can go further. And here we also saw them use some quite interesting tactics. We saw them bring drone pilots with them in some of these sneaky assault groups.

Commanders told me about how they went with them and then they were already flying out and doing reconnaissance on the next bit of territory, which they were going to sneak through. And they would kind of bunny hop on each other and go as far as they could. And that's how they made it about 15 kilometers back.

Obviously the Ukrainian defense was not ready for this, and did not react well to this. Not only have these Russians snuck past them, but for them to make it that far is a problem.

And what we've heard about the coordination between those units is that this is an example of where the problem of false reporting up the command chain––which is connected to this kind of Soviet culture that often diseases the Ukrainian military and other militaries like it––meant that not only could they not spot the Russians while they were sneaking through their front line, but once they spotted them further back, they didn't tell their higher command. They didn't tell, necessarily, the units that were nearby. Because that was admitting, you know, a big mistake.

But then once you have false reporting, then when those Russian soldiers end up in the rear of your neighboring units, then you see how this problem can kind of snowball. And it can create a state of something akin to chaos in the defense.

And in this chaotic environment, full of false reporting and information, that's when the independent mapping project, DeepState, decided to draw where they assessed these Russians to have made it, and it was alarming for all of us. It was progress at a rate––

Anastasiia Lapatina: It was a very dramatic moment, right, where they've, they, they've published this map and they were kind of at odds with the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian military on this, right?

And the Ukrainian government had to sort of figure out how to comment. And they tried to make it look like nothing happened for a while. Can you just describe that tension a little bit?

Francis Farrell: Yeah, I mean it's a really interesting thing to study about how these independent mapping projects, especially DeepState, because that's the one the whole country, kind of pays attention to how they're playing a role not only in the information war, but in the real war.

And I think here is a case, you know, New York Times talked to DeepState about them, I talked to them a little bit about it as well, about how yeah they were hearing what was really going on from commanders. They were, you know, being sent videos and stuff.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian top command is not acknowledging this problem whatsoever. And so they draw this Russian advance on the map, and then the Ukrainian spokesperson comes out and says that, no, it's no problem. It's just a few sabotage groups that, you know, maybe 10, 20 guys that made it that far. They're being killed, you know, as we speak, and so on.

But because the country and a lot of the military trusts DeepState, more than the official spokespeople, the cat was out of the bag. It was it was definitely the case that there was a big problem here. And then the––I think it was that evening, the military command decided to redeploy the Azov Corps to the area and some of Ukraine's other elite units.

And that's kind of an admission that the problem is pretty serious, when you're deploying Ukraine's Elite units to the area. But perhaps that wouldn't have happened so quickly if it wasn't for you know, DeepState first drawing it on the map, which is kind of a concerning thing going forward.

It's, of course it's very complicated in reality because there's just a lot of politics at the top of the Ukrainian military leadership and the Soviet culture problem goes all the way to the top to commander, to chief, Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi.

But yeah, it's definitely something that you would hope wouldn't go so badly on an information front as it did this time.

Anastasiia Lapatina: You were saying earlier that we don't really know if this breakthrough really aligned to the Alaska meeting or not, and that there were a lot of problems that existed on the Ukrainian side where it seemed like what most likely happened was that sort of tragically, the stars aligned and Russia was doing what it has always been doing, trying to infiltrate the Ukrainian lines, and Ukraine had the problems it's always had, and then it just so happened that a mix of it became this like perfect storm for this breakthrough.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but does that essentially mean that this could happen again at any moment if Ukraine doesn't solve its own problems on it, on its side with the way, how it treats this, you know, intra-unit communication and stuff like that?

Francis Farrell: Yeah. So I think for this year, I think the silver lining is the arrival of winter. The leaves are falling off the trees as we speak. It's getting more and more difficult for Russian infiltration groups to just make it through these tree lines, these open fields, without being noticed.

And it's also cold. It's difficult for them to spend, you know, so much time outside, and they can be easily spotted by thermal cameras and so on. So I would be surprised if we saw something similar in 2025. Of course, that doesn't apply to urban areas where it's not so much of a problem of the trees. And we can see the situation in Pokrovsk similarly deteriorating for a lot of the same, a lot of the same reasons.

But come next year, especially when, where we can see probably a winter of very intense Russian targeting of Ukrainian drone teams. Those are the units that need to be up there with their eyes in the sky looking at the front line and then able being able to hit anything that moves.

Those are the things that keep the defense stable in conditions of, you know, having very few infantry, the Russians will definitely be looking to do the same thing in spring, in summer. So, you know, there will be a tactical challenge to make sure that isn't successful again, because you just can't always throw your very most elite units around and kind of mix and match along a front line that is already very overstretched without strategic reserves.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the actual problem of the false reporting of the Soviet culture, the lack of coordination, we are seeing, on one hand, we did see the attempt, I would say, at switching to a corps-based system in the Army rather than just a brigade-level system with some arbitrary temporary command structures like umbrellas above them.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Can you explain for people who don't know these military specifics, like what was that theoretically supposed to do? How was that supposed to help?

Francis Farrell: Yeah, so before so over 2024, I mean, all of these things were already problems and basically the main unit of the fight was the brigade, which is ideally, you know, 4,000 or 5,000 people, and they hold maybe a few kilometers of frontline.

In reality, the brigade wasn't really given much control over everything. They were micromanaged by these overhead umbrella command organizations that were responsible for, let me say the Pokrovsk area, and then say the whole eastern area. And then on top of that was the general staff.

And ultimately, the general staff ended up micromanaging everything on the brigade level. These organizations in between, they just passed orders back and forth. And there was a big disconnect between the actual reality on the front line and the reality that the general staff was seeing.

And ideally, the reform of changing it to a corps system where there would be a corps command which was in control of, let's say three to five brigades, and that would actually be responsible and actually take these decisions in all the brigades in that sector, that was meant to improve things.

In reality, very rarely did that make a difference, mostly because these brigades were still––they were meant to be in one corps together, but in reality, they were scattered across the front line. So they just simply couldn't fight as a unit.

Anastasiia Lapatina: So let's say three or four brigades in a corps, they weren't even deployed to the same area.

Francis Farrell: Yeah. And it doesn't make sense if they're not next to each other at all.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Right. So then the whole reform is sort of useless.

Francis Farrell: Yeah. And then the core commanders end up. Playing a same, a similar function to the previous umbrella organizations because they've just got this area, which they're nominally in charge of.

But if the general staff still wants to micromanage everything inside, which they usually do, then they won't really be making much of a difference And it's just something that we, I think we have to live with at this point, because it doesn't seem like the leadership is interested in replacing Syrskyi, who is normally seen as the main person who, who propagates this culture.

I mean, you can talk about these cultural issues. Just like, you know, corruption in Ukraine. It's a kind of disease that's everywhere.

Anastasiia Lapatina: It's endemic. Yeah.

Francis Farrell: But at the same time, it makes a difference if the person at the top is fighting against it or is basically allowing it to, to thrive, basically.

It's a huge difference. And the same thing goes for General Syrskyi, unfortunately.

And, you know, the core reform has not really worked except in a few isolated cases. And that problem is something we're just going to have to live with, I think, going forward in this war.

Anastasiia Lapatina: So much of the recent conversation on the political side of this war and the peace negotiations has been focused on this idea, and this Russian demand, for Ukraine to give up Donbas, voluntarily withdraw its forces from the remainder of the Donbas region that Ukraine still controls.

And I think it's a fascinating conversation, because it feels like there is a big disconnect as there often is between the reality in that region and sort of on the front line and in the field, and the high-level conversation.

So as someone who's been in all of these areas, can you just, first of all, just describe what is this area that we're talking about? What is this pocket of the Donetsk Oblast that Ukraine still controls, over which there is now these fights in this conversation. Ukraine, you know, just completely rejects even a hint of the idea that it would ever give it up voluntarily, and Russia just keeps pushing forward for it.

So what is this place over which this arguing is happening?

Francis Farrell: Yeah. Big question. So the Donbas is usually––it's sometimes a little bit controversial in Ukraine because some people think that the term the Russians came up with this term, so we shouldn't use it.

But in general, it refers to, it's a geographical, it's a kind of economic region of eastern Ukraine, but ultimately people use it to refer to two regions, to Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts.

Luhansk Oblast is now completely occupied by Russia. But Donetsk Oblast, which is, I think it was one of the most populated regions in Ukraine and one of the richest regions of Ukraine before Russia's war began in 2014, it is now about 75% occupied, if I'm correct with my numbers. So, of course Russia took, occupied the regional capital, Donetsk, back in 2014.

They took the next biggest city, Mariupol, in 2022, on the coast. But still, a lot of what has remained has included some pretty major cities. We talked about Pokrovsk itself, which is now a shell of its former self and being destroyed as we speak.

But the main thing that people often talk about in terms of what Ukraine can still hold here is the, this belt, it's like an agglomeration of four cities: Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Khrestivka, and Kostiantynivka.

And that's more in the northern part of the region. And the Russians have approached the southernmost city in that belt, Kostiantynivka. That city has basically emptied out now. It's being destroyed by glide bombs. Everything that drives in there, well most things get attacked by drones. A friend of mine, a press officer was there. He actually shot down a Russian drone when he was there with a journalist.

And then there are more cities further in the rear. But generally, here, the argument is that, you know, this is Ukraine's most heavily fortified area. We've got large cities. You know, we saw how long it took and at what cost it took for Russia to take previous cities, including Bakhmut, including Kadiivka, and now Pokrovsk.

So, you know, giving that away for free to Russia just in exchange for a promise that they won't attack again, and they won't keep going, is ridiculous. You speak to any Ukrainian soldier who's fought for years in Donbas and they say, we will simply not accept such orders to, to withdraw from Donbas.

That's like, low-level commanders. I've heard that many times from Ukrainian soldiers. And it's fair. It's a fair point. And then there's also the moral element to this, which is that there's still over 200,000 people living in Ukrainian-controlled Donbas. And the whole fight that we're in is about the difference between land being in, in free Ukraine or being occupied.

If that is handed over into Russian occupation, then we're talking about the deportation of children. We're talking about the systemic torture of civilians. We're talking about this brutally anti-Ukrainian police state coming in. You know, that's what this war is being fought for in the first place. And yeah, on top of that, it's not acceptable, it's not possible in Ukraine's constitution.

And so with that, all in mind, of course. The way I see the Putin's focus on the Donbas, and especially his decision before Alaska to reduce his demands from all of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk, to only the rest of Donetsk, it seems just like another episode.

You know, of course Putin is, Russia's obsessed with Donbas. They really pushed this myth of Russian Donbas.

But I think more so this was simply a pragmatic decision to put pressure back on Ukraine in Trump's mind. Just––and it worked for a while. You know, Trump was saying, you know, we'll do some land swapping, and then he was disappointed that Ukraine didn't want to give up Donbas, it seems like Russia's giving some concessions. Where, in reality they're just, you know, moving from one level of unacceptable to a slightly lower level of unacceptable.

And that worked for a while. It threw Trump off the idea of pushing Russia for a ceasefire. I'm not sure how he's thinking right now. He's, you know, they put some sanctions on Russia, but otherwise there hasn't been too much noise in recent weeks. And so that's not really clear.

But still, I think finally, you know, Ukraine and Europe, despite that, I would say, hurdle, and despite that misfortune of Alaska and everything, have basically got Trump to the understanding that Russia is the biggest problem in stopping this war. But still the question is what he's willing to do about it.

Sorry, I realized your first question was just about Donbas. But it's, no, that's a lovely place. A lot of coal mining and industry, a lot of hardworking people.

Anastasiia Lapatina: And also something I wanted to add is it's, there are also a huge number of defenses that Ukraine has built in that area over many years, right. Going back to 2014 as well.

And so correct me if I'm wrong, but it's one of the most well-defended areas across the entire front line. So giving that, giving such an advantageous piece of land to Russia would just give them an excellent opportunity to reinvade from that point again, right.

So just from a purely military standpoint, from a military strategic point of view, it's really ludicrous.

Francis Farrell: Yeah, a hundred percent.

I mean, the way drones are changing war, you know, it is a bit scary in terms of how, really, easy it's going to be to defend these cities, because now FPV drones are flying into most of them and hitting the logistics routes.

But, you know, there are answers to that. Ukraine's building anti-drone nets. And so it's always worth remembering Russia wants a lot more in this war, a lot more than just Donbas. They want Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Kharkhiv, Odessa. Ultimately, it's clear they still want to destroy an independent Ukraine that is free and strong and sovereign.

And so the way to get them to stop is to just place insurmountable costs on them. And it is clear that, you know, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, they're––I think they're lovely cities. I enjoy staying in them. It's hard to say now whether they will survive this war.

But if there needs to be some fortresses, just like Pokrovsk, that are the place where Ukraine makes a stand and just grinds up ridiculous amounts of Russian, you know, manpower and resources, and stops them from then moving forward, then if there's anywhere that's going to happen, then that is these cities in Donbas. And that's why I think Finnish president Alexander Stubb was telling Trump that this is the bastion against the Huns. Because it truly is.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Francis, thank you so much for finding the time for us. It's great to have you as always.

Francis Farrell: Thank you. Always a pleasure.

Anastasiia Lapatina: The Lawfare Podcast is produced in cooperation with the Brookings Institution. You can get ad-free versions of this and other Lawfare podcasts by becoming a Lawfare material supporter through our website, lawfaremedia.org/support. You'll also get access to special events and other content available only to our supporters.

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