Pokrovsk Is Encircled. By Fake News
By: Giorgio Provinciali
Live from Ukraine
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Oleksandrivka — In one year, the Russian Federation has launched a record number of missiles against Ukraine: approximately 770 ballistic missiles, including over 50 Kinzhal ‘hypersonic’ missiles. Including other types, the total number of missiles since the beginning of 2025 alone is 1,561. This exceeds the number fired by Nazi Germany in 1945. Last week, one hundred of those missiles struck in Donbas, near Pokrovsk; there were 40% more drones and 20% more missiles than in the previous period. Since Donald Trump took office for a second time, the trend has reached a peak last month, when the Russians fired three and a half times more than in January, with Ukraine shooting down only 120 of 269. In October, Russia also dropped a record number of laser-guided glide bombs on Ukraine: 5,328, the highest since early 2025. Nearly half of these weapons, carrying 250 to 3,000 kilograms of explosive each, fell in the Pokrovsk district. In addition to this immense firepower, the Russians have been focusing for months in that sector nearly a third of their frontline fighting. Suffice it to say that their Chief of Staff, Valery Gerasimov, has deployed some 170,000 soldiers in that area alone. Around as much as those gathered along Ukraine’s borders before launching a large-scale invasion in 2022. In September, 5,000 North Koreans, officially engineers, arrived in their rear areas to repair the logistics and military infrastructure destroyed by Ukraine. According to Seoul’s intelligence agencies, North Korea has deployed another 10,000 to the Ukrainian border to perform “security functions” and is preparing to send 25,000 workers to aid in the mass production of Russian high-explosive attack drones.
This may help us better understand the difficult situation at the front from where I am writing.
Facing such a reality, I was just as surprised to see firsthand that the defense of the Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad settlement continues, that the Ukrainians have liberated nearly 200 km² around neighboring Dobropillia, and have cleared another 250 km² of enemy ДРГ. It was equally surprising to learn from reliable sources that no more than 200–300 Russian soldiers are currently stationed in Pokrovsk. Especially, after having confirmed what Ukraine actually receives in military support from countries that don’t even shoot down a single quadcopter flying over an airfield, to avoid offending Putin.
Pokrovsk is not surrounded. It was besieged — which is different — and, in an operation that will be remembered in war textbooks, it was liberated from that grip. About a thousand civilians remain in the city, and perhaps twice as many in the surrounding area.
Evacuating them is nearly impossible, as Dmytro Petlin, head of Donetsk’s Department of Operational and Emergency Services, explained. The situation remains critical, despite the fact that in the past few hours, attack aircraft from the 425th Separate Regiment “Skal” have once again raised the Ukrainian flag over the Pokrovsk town hall.
The Russians continue to attack coal plants in the rest of Donetsk. Five glide bombs damaged a thermal power plant on Wednesday, leaving the free part of that Oblast’ once again in darkness. No longer able to guarantee the safety of passengers on those trains, the national railway company Ukrzaliznytsia was forced to suspend traffic on the routes to and from Kramatorsk and then Sloviansk, limiting it to the stations of Husarivka or Barvinkove (located in the Kharkiv region) and organizing bus shuttles.
The constant flow of military vehicles of all kinds towards Pokrovsk is so intense that you become an obstacle, even when passing more than twenty kilometers away. To disrupt this convulsive logistics, the Russians are also shelling Dnipropetrovsk, projecting KABs, drones, and other missiles even beyond Pavlohrad and Synelnykove.
Unable to boast any success that justifies the rivers of bloodshed, the Kremlin has entrusted the production of fake news to artificial intelligence. Already viral, a clumsily produced video on TikTok boasts a “mass surrender of Ukrainian soldiers in Pokrovsk” that never actually happened. As I observed a few hours ago in a radio link from the field with RAI, the media situation is so confusing that flipping through a dozen newspapers yields as many versions. Sometimes even contradictory ones. Some are repeating false reports, such as the claim of a Ukrainian surrender. Others lack independent information because reaching the front is objectively a near-suicidal undertaking. The sky is filled with drones, GPS is down, roads are mined, and the Russians are shooting on sight at both military and civilian vehicles, including ambulances and press units. Suffice it to say, in the past few days alone, they have killed seven media workers. This is why, on that front as well, we see the same pattern as in Bakhmut—where, depending on what certain bloggers shared from the field, others, from a distance, dismissed towns like Klishchiivka and Andriivka as lost, only to recapture them on the pages of the same newspaper.
Through our crowdfunding campaign, we aim to purchase and install drone detection devices on each of our vehicles to protect against drone attacks in hot zones. Anti-drone «РЕБ» devices have proven effective against traditional wireless drones, but are completely ineffective against those connected via fiber-optic cables. We are launching this new campaign to ensure that none of those devices will hit us when we approach the frontlines where we write our articles. Your support will not only protect us but also the civilians and defenders within the device’s range.
To our Italian-speaking readers, here’s my report from Pokrovsk for RAI Radio Uno
波克罗夫斯克被包围：假新闻
作者：Giorgio Provinciali
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奥列克桑德里夫卡（Oleksandrivka）——在一年内，俄罗斯联邦向乌克兰发射了创纪录数量的导弹：大约770枚弹道导弹，包括50多枚“匕首”高超音速导弹。包括其他类型在内，仅自2025年初以来的导弹总数已达1561枚，超过了1945年纳粹德国发射的数量。上周，其中100枚导弹击中了波克罗夫斯克附近的顿巴斯；与前一时期相比，多了40%的无人机和20%的导弹。自唐纳德川普第二次就职以来，这一趋势在上个月达到了高峰，当时俄罗斯发射的导弹数量是一月份的三倍半，乌克兰仅击落了269枚中的120枚。十月，俄军还在乌克兰投下了创纪录数量的激光制导滑翔炸弹：—共5,328枚，这是自2025年初以来的最高纪录。这些武器中近一半，每件携带重250至3,000公斤的炸药，落在波克罗夫斯克地区。除了如此庞大的火力，俄罗斯数月来一直在该区域集中近三分之一的前线火力。可以说，俄军参谋长韦拉里·格拉西莫夫仅在该地区就部署了大约17万士兵，约与2022年大规模入侵乌克兰前边境线上的兵力相当。在九月份，5000名朝鲜人以工程师的官方身份抵达他们的后方地区，修复被乌克兰破坏的后勤和军事基础设施。据首尔情报机构称，朝鲜还在乌克兰边境部署了另外1万人，担任“安全职能”，并准备派遣2.5万名工人协助大规模生产俄制高爆攻击无人机。
从我写作的地方着眼或许有助于我们更好的理解前线困难形势。
面对这样的现实，我震惊地亲眼看到，波克罗夫斯克-米尔诺赫拉德地区的防御仍在持续进行，乌克兰人在邻近多布罗普里亚地区已解放了近200平方公里，并清理了另外达250平方公里的敌方侦察和破坏队伍（ДРГ）。更令人惊讶的是，据可靠消息源透露，目前在波克罗夫斯克剩余的俄军不过200到300人。特别是，确认了乌克兰实际上从那些没有击落飞过其空军基地的四轴飞行器——以避免激怒普京——的国家获得了军事支援。
（图：Alla在顿涅茨克州入口处整理旗帜。保护网架在“星星”上方——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
波克罗夫斯克并未被包围，而是遭围攻——两者是有区别的——在一次将载入战史的行动中被解放。城内仍有大约一千名平民，周边地区的平民可能是该市的两倍。
正如顿涅茨克行动与紧急服务部主任德米特罗·佩特林解释的那样，撤离他们几乎不可能。尽管乌克兰“斯卡尔”第425独立旅在几小时前再次在波克罗夫斯克市政厅上升起乌克兰国旗，但局势依然危急。
（图片来源：TopLeadEU）
俄罗斯人继续攻击顿涅茨克其他地区的煤电厂。周三，五枚滑翔炸弹损坏了一座热电厂，使该州的非占领区再次陷入黑暗。由于无法保障列车上乘客的安全，国家铁路公司Ukrzaliznytsia被迫暂停了往返克拉马托尔斯克和斯洛维安斯克的列车线路，改由在呼萨列夫卡或巴尔文科车站安排巴士接送。
向波克罗夫斯克方向不断涌来的各种军事车辆如此密集，即使在距离超过二十公里之外，你的车也有可能成为军车的障碍。为了打击这个忙乱的后勤调度，俄军又炮击第聂伯罗彼得罗夫斯克，不仅投放“克拉那”导弹、无人机和其他导弹，还将火力延伸到帕夫洛拉德和辛内尔尼克沃等地。
（图：俄军持续攻击乌克兰的民用基础设施。我于昨天拍摄此照片——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
克里姆林宫无法夸耀任何为流血之河辩护的成功，因此将假新闻的制作委托给人工智能。抖音上走红的一个拙劣的视频，吹嘘“在波克罗夫斯克的乌克兰士兵大规模投降”，但实际上从未发生过。正如我几小时前在与RAI的现场无线电链接中观察到的，媒体的状况如此混乱，翻阅十几份报纸就会得出许多不同的版本。有时甚至还相互矛盾。有些报道在重复虚假消息，比如声称乌克兰投降。也有一些缺乏独立信息来源，因为从客观上讲，亲抵前线是一项近乎自杀的任务。天空中满是无人机，GPS系统已关闭，道路上布满地雷，俄罗斯人随时开火攻击军用和民用车辆，包括救护车和新闻车辆。仅在过去几天里，他们就杀害了七名新闻工作者。这也是为什么，根据一些博主从现场分享的消息在前线我们看到的模式与巴赫穆特类似，而其他人远程宣称克利什奇伊夫卡和安德里伊夫卡等城镇已被攻占，但在同一份报纸的页面上又重新夺回他们。
（图：我在顿涅茨克州纵行，前往顿涅茨克地区——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
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在过去的三年里，作为自由撰稿人，我们一直在乌克兰战争的所有前线进行报道，自从大规模…
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致讲意大利语的读者，我在波克罗夫斯克为RAI Radio Uno做的报道：
Zapping | 2025年11月5日广播 | Rai Radio 1 | RaiPlay Sound
2025年11月5日 Zapping - 由吉安卡尔洛·洛奎恩齐主持，导演：保拉·德高迪奥。
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（图：这是我在意大利报纸“La Ragione”上的专栏——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
