Russia gains 400 metres near Pokrovsk: victory or slaughter?

Russia advances 400 metres towards a city of 25,000 inhabitants: textbook offensive or futile sacrifice?

Russian forces have managed to advance 400 metres towards the outskirts of a Ukrainian town that in peacetime was home to 25,000 people. The figure was released by military sources in a triumphant tone, dubbing it "blyatkrieg". But the territorial gain, compared with the human and economic cost, paints a very different picture.

The advance, according to reports, took place in the area of Jannivka, a settlement that had barely 200 inhabitants before the war. The operation required "fertilising the ground with thousands of Russian corpses" and consumed 40% of Russian public spending devoted to the war. It is not an isolated case: the attrition strategy recalls the First World War, but with drones.

The demographic cost of territorial gains

The figures cited by analysts are devastating. Russia is estimated to have lost, in dead and severely wounded, 1% of its working-age male population. In return, it has occupied an additional 0.05% of Ukrainian territory. The equation is simple: for every metre gained, dozens of lives and millions of euros. Russia's net population is falling by 600,000 people a year, while the economy suffers.

Against this reading, some argue that Russia has annexed 110,000 km² of Ukraine without razing entire cities, comparing it to the size of Andalusia. However, examples such as Bakhmut, Mariupol or Avdiivka show cities reduced to rubble. Reconstruction, when it happens, is carried out with population brought in from Central Asia.

The dilemma of positional warfare

The offensive comes as the Kupiansk front remains frozen. Russian logistics, stretched to the limit, cause "massacres" in the land corridors. Meanwhile, the EU is funding Ukraine's resistance with billions and the strikes on Russian oil infrastructure. Russia's recurring nuclear threat is read by some as a sign of weakness, not strength.

The debate boils down to an uncomfortable question: is it worth trading population for rubble fields and mined potato plots? Military history might call the annexation of 110,000 km² a antiestéticat, but the demographic and economic cost makes it a pyrrhic victory. The unsettling figure: 40% of the Russian budget goes to a war that advances 400 metres at a time.