Russia’s new style of urban warfare is creating a fog of terror among Kyiv’s troops
Memphis Barker and Victor Sajenko
December 6, 2025
The Telegraph
Coming in the other direction, the soldiers looked exactly like the Ukrainian unit walking out of Pokrovsk after a 15-day deployment. They wore the same blue armbands and carried the same equipment. One of the four men said “hello”. But minutes later, a warning came over the radio: “Be careful, there is a group of Russian infiltrators in your area.” “We passed right by them,” says Ivan, a 21-year-old machine gunner in an unmanned systems unit from the Da Vinci Wolves. “The men I saw matched the description exactly.”
Inside Pokrovsk, the dividing lines of urban warfare have faded. In their place is a fog of suspicion, terror and chaos, with small groups of Russian infiltrators interspersed with Ukrainian defensive forces.
The Russians slip through the gaps in the front line, dressed in civilian clothes or riding on bicycles. Drones reign in the sky. But from their dug-outs, Ukrainian soldiers have revived the Biblical practice of shibboleths – code-words difficult for Russian spies to pronounce. On Monday, Moscow said it had captured the city after 18 months of brutal warfare. Kyiv denies the claim. But even if Pokrovsk has not already fallen, it is only a matter of time. And military strategists inside both Ukraine and Nato will have to adapt to a new style of urban warfare, where – like termites – an advancing force eats away at defenders from the inside out. “There is this phenomenon of ‘de-mechanisation’ of warfare,” said Emil Kastehelmi, an analyst at the Finland-based Black Bird Group. Two years ago, columns of tanks and infantry would have attempted to encircle Pokrovsk or force the Ukrainian brigades into a retreat, as they did in Bakhmut.
But warfare has changed. Today, the proliferation of drones means any such concentration of forces faces swift obliteration.
Russia’s infiltration strategy
Instead, Russians are advancing with groups of three to five people, which means “the front line gets blurry”, said Mr Kastehelmi. First, a Russian reconnaissance drone scouts for gaps in Ukraine’s front-line defences, which have grown with shortages of manpower and the inability of Kyiv’s troops to move without being targeted. “You step out of a bunker, look up, and for sure there will be a drone hovering above you. The sky is thick with them,” said Ivan, the machine-gunner. “Our positions are not able to completely control the entire line,” added Navigator, chief of staff of the Dovbush Hornets, an unmanned systems battalion with the 68th infantry brigade. “They are just separate pockets, with enough space for a cyclist to pass through.
“When our guys are in one entrance of a building, the enemy in another, and our guys in a third, how can you even talk about a front line?”
Changes in the weather spell trouble. When the sun shines, Ukraine can limit the number of Russian infiltrators entering the city to around 10, one Ukrainian commander told Hromadske, a local news website. But when it is rainy or foggy, as many as 40 can break through. “When I fly [my drone] in foggy weather, there is just a blanket of white on the ground and I can’t see anything through it,” said Ivan. Last month, heavy fog allowed Russian troops to enter the city in the open. Video shared on social media showed troops advancing on motorbikes, Mad Max-style civilian trucks and by foot.
Around 300 infiltrators had made it into the city by late November, according to Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president. Soldiers on the ground said the figure was likely higher. For the Russian infiltrators, their lifespan tends to be short. “We are killing a fairly large number of [these infiltrators],” said Navigator. “But not all of them.”
Once they dig in, the Russians can launch drones, fire at Ukrainian positions and guide further reinforcements to their hiding place. In doing so, they broaden the “grey zone” under neither side’s control.
Chaos and mistrust inside Pokrovsk
Deep State, a trusted Ukraine-based map service, shows Moscow now holding at least half of the city, covering the south-east, while the grey zone extends across the rest of the neighbourhoods. Nothing is held entirely by Kyiv.
Even if they spot infiltrators, nearby Ukrainian units can be unwilling to shoot. “If the Ukrainians reveal themselves, the risks are very, very high,” said Mr Kastehelmi. Instead, they can let Russians slip through and report the location to their own drone teams to carry out a strike.
Sometimes separated by only a few feet in shattered, roofless buildings and within shouting distance across shell-pounded roads, the two sides race to identify and eliminate threats.
When Ukraine’s defenders suspect a Russian unit is nearby, they may call out to them with “special words for them to pronounce, as a test”, said Sergiy, a Ukrainian soldier recovering in hospital after suffering a heart attack in Pokrovsk.
The Ukrainian word for a loaf of bread – “palianytsia” – is hard for a native Russian speaker, as it requires a vowel sound produced by bringing the tongue close to the roof of the mouth – something the Russian language lacks.
For their part, Russian infiltrators will sometimes fire upon anybody that crosses their path, whether soldiers or civilians. In October, Ukrainian intelligence services intercepted a commander’s order to shoot everyone who crossed the railway tracks in the city: “Anyone with large civilian bags, just f— them up”.
Drone footage taken in the following days showed three corpses in the area: one wore jeans, another a suit jacket, while a woman shot off her bicycle was carrying a laundry bag. In the chaos, it can be difficult for Ukraine to recognise friendly forces. At one point, Ivan’s unit asked if they should destroy an infantry fighting vehicle that had pulled up near their position. “Don’t,” came the reply over the radio: “it’s one of ours”. “It later turned out it wasn’t ours,” said Ivan. “The communication error could have had a disastrous outcome. But when we learned it wasn’t ours, we managed to destroy it with an FPV [a type of drone].”
“Another [Ukrainian] brigade mistakenly destroyed four of our Termites,” he adds, referring to the unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) used to carry supplies and weapons to the front as well as evacuating wounded soldiers.
Deliberate misreporting adds to the confusion. In Pokrovsk, as elsewhere on the front, Ukrainian commanders can “massage” the truth to their superiors. They may say that a position is under Ukrainian control, when in reality, it is only held by a wounded soldier, if at all. This avoids the order to launch a counterattack where they would likely be killed. “This is a human factor,” said Sergiy. “There are different people and they say it differently. This is our reality.”
Pokrovsk left vulnerable
While the infiltrators gnaw away at Ukraine’s defences, Russian drones and glide-bomb attacks make it extremely difficult to resupply the men at the front.
Compilations of battlefield footage show a blitzkrieg of FPV strikes on cars, personnel carriers and other Ukrainian vehicles attempting to use the roads into Pokrovsk.
Unable to drive in supplies of ammunition, food and water, Ukraine turned to UGVs. But they can carry less than the cars they replaced – and even they only last so long. The Termite UGVs used by Ivan’s unit only survived four missions before they were destroyed. As the battle shifted towards infiltration, Ukrainian drone pilots became the most prized target: after all, only they could spot – and strike – the small groups of Russians slinking into the city.
Typically, pilots are based somewhat to the rear of the infantry on the front. This provided a measure of protection. But with Russian infiltrators advancing deep into the rear, drone pilots began to suffer the highest rate of casualties.
As a result, Ukraine pulled back some of its pilots to safer positions. But this came at a cost, a Ukrainian officer said. “Because of this, our second echelon does not work, and it provides 90 per cent of the strikes. Accordingly, we cannot kill Russians on the approach to the city,” he told Hromadske.
Ukraine called on teams of elite, battle-hardened units to root out the infiltrators. Videos show soldiers throwing grenades through the windows of buildings or poking their guns around the corner of garden doors.
The Azov National Guard deployed in July to beat back the Russian salient around Dobropillia. In October, special forces with Ukraine’s GUR intelligence division flew into Pokrovsk on Black
Hawk helicopters in a staggeringly bold effort to reopen supply lines. But eventually the drips of Russian advance turned into an unbeatable tide.
Russia’s next target
Formerly a valuable logistics hub, Pokrovsk is still described as a potential launch-pad for future Russian assaults on the fortress belt cities, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, that hold Ukraine’s remaining sliver of the Donbas. But the disadvantage of infiltration tactics is that, moving so slowly, they do not allow for grand operational breakthroughs, said Mr Kastehelmi. “If you are just pushing infantry and light vehicles, you will be stopped at some level. Achieving momentum is difficult.”
Ukraine has fortified its defensive lines and Moscow will have to first take Kostyantynivka and other smaller urban centres before it reaches Kramatorsk. “I think that most of the fight will go on as this slow, dragging type of fighting that has been seen on several parts of the front,” Mr Kastehelmi added.
“There’s been a lot of talk about Pokrovsk being a very meaningful city, but in a way like Bakhmut, taking it doesn’t really open any new avenues of approach for the Russian armed forces, so they could then significantly accelerate and take the rest of the Donbas.”
Termites move slowly. But as he dismisses the latest US attempts to secure a peace deal, Vladimir Putin can count on one thing in his favour: they are also hard to stop.