Front-line combat video captures special ops Black Hawk raid into Pokrovsk, Ukraine’s fiercest fight

• Ukraine’s military shared footage on Tuesday of a helicopter raid with special operations forces in Pokrovsk.
• The rare video showed how Kyiv is attempting to defend the city amid extremely heavy fighting.
• Russian forces are encroaching on Pokrovsk, having targeted the strategically key city for months.

Ukraine released rare combat footage showing its special operations forces launching a raid from a Black Hawk helicopter into the embattled front-line city of Pokrovsk, where some of the war’s most intense fighting is taking place.

The video footage offers a glimpse into how Ukraine is scrambling to defend the strategically important city from the Russians. The deployment of special forces suggests a new effort from Kyiv to repel the brutal assaults slowly seizing ground.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, the HUR, published new combat footage of its special “Timur” unit fighting in Pokrovsk, a war-torn city in the eastern Donetsk region.

At one point in the video, a Black Hawk helicopter can be seen flying over fields. Ukrainian special operations soldiers then pour out of the aircraft and rush forward toward Pokrovsk before it takes off and turns around. The footage also shows airstrikes and drone operations in the city. It is unclear when the raids took place.

The Ukrainian military has an undisclosed number of UH-60 Black Hawks, products of the American company Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin subsidiary, and it is rare to see them make an appearance in official combat footage.

The HUR described the helicopter operation as “successful” and said more forces from the Timur unit joined troops who had broken through a ground corridor. The agency did not reveal the names of any other special operations forces fighting in the Pokrovsk area, but it said that “fierce battles” are ongoing.

Russia has been trying for over a year to take Pokrovsk, a strategically significant logistics hub that it could use as a staging ground for deeper advances into the Donetsk region. Ukraine has defended the city, although battlefield maps published by the Institute for the Study of War show that Moscow now holds territory right at the edge of the city.

The US-based think tank said there are indications that Russia has infiltrated the city from the northwest. Moscow’s defense ministry has said that Ukrainian forces in Pokrovsk are encircled.

Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Saturday that Pokrovsk is the most difficult sector of the front line.

Syrskyi said Ukraine is facing thousands of Russian soldiers who are trying to infiltrate Pokrovsk and cut off supply routes. He denied reports that Moscow’s forces had surrounded and blockaded the city, adding that Kyiv is “doing everything” to keep logistics flowing.

The top Ukrainian general said that there is a “comprehensive” operation to repel Russian advances on Pokrovsk, adding that he had ordered the HUR, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and other special forces to deploy to the city, where Moscow is paying “the highest price.”

The SBU, Ukraine’s internal security agency, said on Tuesday that its “Alpha” special forces unit has, over the past month, killed more than 1,500 Russian soldiers and destroyed dozens of tanks, armored combat vehicles, multiple rocket launchers, and air defense systems.

The SBU has operated near Pokrovsk for a while, but it said that it has increased the number of Alpha special forces around the city amid the recent uptick in fighting. “They carry out extremely difficult tasks in the hottest spots and eliminate enemy units with precise strikes,” the agency said.

Pokrovsk is the latest in a string of grueling urban battles between Ukraine and Russia since the start of the war and bears hallmarks of the bloody fighting for Bakhmut and Avdiivka earlier. Moscow now occupies both cities, which were effectively reduced to rubble.