An Assault Group Attacked Pokrovsk While Flying A Giant Russian Flag

Forbes

30-03-2025

A Russian assault group attacks under a large flag.
Via Officer_alex
It's tempting fate to roll into a battle in Ukraine while flying a giant flag from your armored vehicle. But that's exactly what a Russian regiment did on Thursday as they attacked under the white, blue and red banner of the Russian Federation.
Marshalling a dozen increasingly precious armored vehicles, the Russians attacked toward the fortress city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian 35th Marine Brigade and the Birds of Magyar drone group were waiting for them with drones and artillery.
'The entire column was completely destroyed,' one Ukrainian blogger reported. The same thing happened the last time the Russians attacked under a giant flag—in that case, the blood-red flag of the defunct Soviet Union.
The wholesale destruction of the flag-waving Russian assault group came as the Kremlin is once again increasing pressure on Pokrovsk, the anchor of a chain of fortified settlements stretching toward the north.
A Russian tank burns outside Pokrovsk.
Via Officer_alex
Russian forces spent a year marching the roughly 25 miles from the ruins of Avdiivka to Pokrovsk. But the offensive ground to a halt a few miles outside of Pokrovsk as it ran into the thickest concentration of Ukrainian drones and artillery last month.
There was a weeks-long lull in assaults as Russian forces first focused on ejecting Ukrainian troops from western Russia's Kursk Oblast, which they finally did late last month. Now 'Russian forces increase the intensity of their attacks on the Pokrovsk direction and attempt to reach the same level of intensity as in January 2025,' the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies observed.
For the Thursday assault, a Russian regiment assembled a dozen armored vehicles in one column—an increasingly rare sight as Russian losses of armored vehicles and other heavy equipment exceeds 20,000 and regiments turn to civilian vehicles to keep their troops moving.
The Russians were victorious in Kursk because the Ukrainians occupied a narrow salient with vulnerable supply lines—and the Russians deployed their best drones to sever the main road into the salient.
The only salients around Pokrovsk are held by the Russians. And the only vulnerable supply lines are also Russian. The doomed flag assault was 'unnecessary confirmation of the offensive weakness of the Russians, who, even having accumulated equipment, cannot do anything' around Pokrovsk, the Ukrainian blogger concluded.
Given the conditions, it was imprudent for Russian troops to call their shot—and attack under a giant Russian flag as though they'd already won the battle.