A Russian HQ Set Up Near Pokrovsk. Ukrainians Blew Up The Building.

If it seems like Ukrainian forces have been systematically hunting down Russian headquarters staffs and blowing them up in their bunkers lately, it’s because that’s exactly what they’ve been doing.

Outgunned, outnumbered and on the defensive despite staggering Russian losses as Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds toward its fourth year, the Ukrainians are trying to disrupt Russian command and control in order to slow Russian assaults.

The latest strike, on or just before Sunday, was a dramatic one. As a Ukrainian drone observed from overhead, some deep-strike munition—a rocket, bomb or cruise missile, it seems—struck an abandoned high-rise in Novohrodivka that the Russian 2nd Guards Combined Arms Army had transformed into a makeshift headquarters.

“This operation is part of a series of strikes targeting command posts of the occupying forces in the Donetsk direction,” the Ukrainian general staff reported. Other recent Ukrainian raids have targeted the Russian 810th Naval Infantry Brigade’s headquarters in and around Kursk Oblast in western Russia.

There’s not yet any information about Russian casualties in Novohrodivka, but they could be heavy. An entire section of the high-rise appears to have collapsed in the strike, echoing the bloodiest and most brutal skirmishes in the ruins of the city of Toretsk, 25 miles to the northeast.

Novohrodivka is on the bleeding edge of the Russian offensive grinding toward Pokrovsk, a fortress city anchoring the front line in eastern Ukraine’s Donestk Oblast. Capturing what’s left of bomb-battered Pokrovsk is one of Russia’s main objectives in the 35th month of the wider war. Defending the city is one of Ukraine’s top objectives.

That the 2nd Guards Combined Arms Army, which oversees a dozen or more regiments and brigades, is entrenched in Novohrodivka is bad news for the Ukrainian garrison in Pokrovsk, which is desperate for reinforcements after a newly arriving unit—the 155th Mechanized Brigade—began disintegrating before it even reached Pokrovsk.

From Novohrodivka, the Russians can hit Pokrovsk with practically all of their indirect-fire weapons, including short-range explosive drones.

But the proximity of the Russians to Pokrovsk also brings them into range of the Pokrovsk garrison’s own short-range weapons—and its most numerous surveillance drones: the first link in the “kill chain” that ends with Russian HQs exploding.

As the main battle for Pokrovsk begins in the coming days or weeks and more Russian force stage closer to the city, their commanders and command staffs will stage closer to the city, as well.

The Ukrainians will be looking for them, and preparing to strike with rockets, missiles and bombs.