• Russia believes it can contain the incursion without reducing its efforts in Donetsk.
• Pokrovsk officials have increasingly urged evacuations in the Donetsk region around Pokrovsk.
• Authorities have instructed people to begin evacuating the town and offered shelter in western Ukraine.

On Friday, military authorities in the eastern Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk urged civilians to expedite their evacuation as the Russian army rapidly closes in on one of Moscow’s key targets. This call for immediate evacuation coincided with Kyiv’s efforts to shift the Kremlin’s military focus from the Ukrainian front line to Russian soil by launching a bold incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.

The urgency highlights the high-stakes gamble Ukraine is taking by extending the war into Russia with its ongoing Kursk assault, which began on August 6. This daring attack aims to alter the dynamics of the 2½-year conflict but could backfire, leaving Ukraine’s under-resourced defense on the front line vulnerable to Russia’s advance. Since the spring, the Kremlin’s forces have maintained battlefield momentum and superior strength in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

Ukraine is betting it can manage the strain on its resources in Kursk without compromising its position in Donetsk. Meanwhile, Russia believes it can contain the incursion without having to scale back its efforts in Donetsk.

“Both cannot be right,” Nigel Gould-Davies, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said Thursday. “The outcome hangs in the balance.”

Russia’s slow advance across Donetsk this year has been costly in terms of troops and armor, but its gains have accumulated. Pokrovsk, with a prewar population of about 60,000, serves as one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a crucial logistics hub in the Donetsk region. Capturing it would undermine Ukraine’s defensive capabilities and disrupt its supply routes, bringing Russia closer than ever to its goal of capturing the entire Donetsk region.

In recent weeks, officials have increasingly urged evacuations in the Donetsk region around Pokrovsk.

Pokrovsk officials said in a Telegram post-Friday that Russian troops are “advancing at a fast pace. With every passing day, there is less and less time to collect personal belongings and leave for safer regions.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had warned on Thursday that Pokrovsk and other nearby towns in the Donetsk region were “facing the most intense Russian assaults.”

“Priority supplies — everything that is needed — are being sent there,” Zelensky said on X.

That same day, authorities instructed people to begin evacuating the town. Pokrovsk officials met with residents to provide logistical details on the evacuation. They offered shelter in western Ukraine, where residents will stay in dormitories and separate houses prepared for them.

“As the front line approaches Pokrovsk, the need to move to a safer place is becoming increasingly urgent,” the local administration said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops have taken full control of Sudzha, according to Zelensky on Thursday. This is the largest Russian town to fall to Ukraine’s forces since the start of their incursion 10 days ago, boosting Ukrainian morale and embarrassing the Kremlin. A family that fled from Sudzha appeared on Russian state TV, showing the shattered windows of their car, which resulted from an attack while they were on the road.

“At the turn, they were shooting, there were mines, and we drove around the mines. Then we were driving further, and the drone hit us in Bondarevka,” said Nikolai Netbayev.

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