Pokrovsk, formerly known as Krasnoarmiisk (until 2016) and Grishino (until 1934), is a city and the administrative center of Pokrovsk Raion in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. It is located 56 kilometres (35 mi) northwest of Donetsk. Prior to 2020, it was incorporated as a city of oblast significance. Its population was approximately 60,127 (2022 estimate). Due to residents’ relocation during the Pokrovsk offensive by Russia, the population declined to around 7,000 as of January 2025 and less than 1,500 by late July 2025. In early November the city was reported to be a battlefront of the ongoing war.
Pokrovsk was founded as Grishino in 1875 by a decision of the Ministry of Railways of the Russian Empire authorizing a railway station. The railway settlement had two thousand inhabitants. In 1881, a locomotive depot which became one of the main locomotive repair companies, Ekaterinoslavskaya railway, was built in the town. Two years later, in 1883, there was an enlargement to the station building; the central portion survives to this day. In May 1884, trains began transiting the rail station in Grishino. With the development of the railway station, Grishino grew and there were new businesses, in particular for exploitation of underground minerals, starting with coal. By 1913, the population around Grishino station had more than doubled to about 4.5 thousand people. After the Russian Civil War ravaged the former Empire, Grishino station continued its growth and by 1925 had a locomotive depot, a brick factory, and six mines. The victorious Soviet forces established the Ukrainian SSR in the USSR. The name of the station was changed to Postyshevo in 1934 to honor Pavel Postyshev, and in 1938, the name of the city became Krasnoarmeyskoe, commemorating the Soviet Red Army, after Postyshev was repressed during the Great Purge.
World War II heavily impacted the population of the city. The first Axis forces to arrive were Italians, followed by the Germans who occupied it on 19 October 1941. German forces proceeded to forcibly transfer many civilians by train to labor camps in Austria. Many residents defended their hometown. 8,295 Soviet soldiers perished on the battlefield and 4,788 residents of the town were killed in World War II. The Germans operated a Nazi prison, a penal forced labour camp and a subcamp of the Stalag 378 prisoner-of-war camp in the city. The city witnessed an atrocity when its remaining Jewish community was massacred in The Holocaust in Ukraine by the German Nazi army in midwinter 1942. Furthermore, in February 1943, the Red Army perpetrated the massacre of Grishino, in which 508 POWs and 88 civilians were massacred, mainly Germans and Italians, but also Romanians, Ukrainians, Hungarians and Danes. On 8 September 1943, the town was re-taken by Red Army troops. In the 1950s, in the post-war period, the city renewed its industrial and residential construction.
Pokrovsk has central importance for the Ukrainian steel industry. Pischane is the largest plant for coking coal production in Ukraine. The site provided half of Metinvest’s coal volume, used to produce steel at the company’s plants. Loss of the Pokrovsk coal mine would thus be a major blow to Ukraine’s steel production industry. According to the head of Ukraine’s steelmakers’ association, Oleksandr Kalenkov, a full closure of the plant could diminish Ukrainian steel production to only 2–3 million metric tons, down from a projected 7.5 million by the end of 2024.
The Pokrovsk Mine Management, besides Pischane, also operates one of the largest coal mines in Ukraine in the village Udachne. Because of the Russian war of aggression, the site is under constant danger of shelling. In July 2021, an explosion occurred in the Udachne coal mine, injuring 10 miners in the blast. The affected workers were hospitalized in the Pokrovsk-based Central District Hospital.
Following the loss of Ukrainian government control over Donetsk in 2014 during the War in Donbas, the Donetsk National Technical University was evacuated to Pokrovsk. On 28 February 2024, the university was partially destroyed by a Russian missile attack.
