Russian ‘sabotage’ unit that killed civilians in Pokrovsk later eliminated, Ukrainian military says
A Russian assault group shot dead several unarmed civilians inside the embattled city of Pokrovsk after infiltrating behind Ukrainian lines, the 7th Corps of Ukraine's Air Assault Forces reported on Oct. 20.
The alleged war crime in the front-line hotspot in Donetsk Oblast was initially reported on Oct. 19 by Ukrainian volunteer Denys Khrystov, who evacuates civilians from front-line settlements and documents his work on social media.
In a Telegram post, Khrystov shared a video given to him by soldiers fighting in Pokrovsk showing the casualties of the Russian attack.
The attack was reportedly carried out on Mostovyi Lane, next to the railway line running through central Pokrovsk, which is clearly identifiable in the video.
Two civilians are seen on the video in a prostrate position, seemingly lifeless. On the side of the street, a third resident appears to be injured, before later being carried off by an unidentified male civilian.
Footage of the shooting itself was not included in Khrystov's post, and the event cannot be independently verified by the Kyiv Independent.
"Recently, an enemy sabotage and reconnaissance group managed to infiltrate the center of Pokrovsk," the 7th Corps wrote.
"During their advance, unfortunately, the Russians violated international humanitarian law and killed several civilians in the city."
The exact number and nature of the civilian casualties were still being determined, Donetsk Oblast police spokesperson Pavlo Diachenko told the Kyiv Independent.
According to Khrystov, the wounded woman visible in the drone footage remains inside Pokrovsk, as conditions make her evacuation impossible.
Due to the extreme danger from Russian drone strikes of any vehicles travelling in and out of Pokrovsk, humanitarian volunteers — including those that evacuate civilians — have almost completely stopped travelling to the city.
According to Diachenko, even the National Police's special White Angels unit, dedicated to evacuating civilians out of the hottest spots on the front line, no longer enters Pokrovsk, instead coordinating with soldiers to get residents out on an ad hoc basis.
Though the Ukrainian defense of the southern outskirts of Pokrovsk mostly held firm over the last few months, the situation has seriously deteriorated in recent days.
According to the Ukrainian battlefield mapping project Deep State, which tracks front-line movements both from open sources and direct communication with commanders in the field, Russian forces now hold significant territory in the southern neighborhoods of the city.
The railway line, where the shootings allegedly took place, is around 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) north of areas under Russian control, according to Deep State.
According to the 7th Corps, the Russian soldiers involved in the shooting of civilians have since been eliminated while hiding in the railway station building, although the situation remains "tense."
As is the case across the front line, Russian troops, often moving in groups of three or fewer, have found increasing success in infiltrating past porous first line of defense and deep into the Ukrainian rear.
The recent deep incursions are not the first to occur in Pokrovsk; in a calcuated operation over late July and early August, dozens of Russian soldiers broke into the city limits, hiding out in buildings and ambushing Ukrainian vehicles.
In the most notable such infiltration operation, Russian assault groups pierced through Ukrainian lines and advanced over 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) northeast of the nearby city of Dobropillia, before a Ukrainian redeployment and counterattack brought the situation under control.
While he had not personally heard of the shooting of civilians in his sector, Ukrainian drone pilot Vladyslav "Venia" of the 68th Jaeger brigade told the Kyiv Independent that Russian forces frequently targeted the local population with first-person-view drones, despite clearly seeing that the targets were civilians.
Since the very beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the frequent shooting of civilians has been widely documented, with the most well-known instance being the Bucha Massacre, committed by Russian troops in March 2022 before their withdrawal from Kyiv Oblast.
Similar killings have also been reported recently elsewhere along the front line.
In September, Ukraine's Third Army Corps reported Russian troops killing two parents and using their young child as a human shield in the village of Shandryholove in northern Donetsk Oblast.
On Oct. 9, Ukraine's Security Service identified the Russian commander of the alleged shooting of three residents of Kupiansk in Kharkiv Oblast on Oct. 2.
Similarly to Pokrovsk, the urban area of Kupiansk is contested as of October 2025, with the exact control of territory difficult to determine independently amid intense urban fighting.
