Pokrovsk Raion

Pokrovsk Raion (Покровський район; Покровский район) is a raion (district) within Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine. Its administrative center is Pokrovsk. It has an area of 1,316 km2 and its population is approximately

An architectural monument in the raion is the Petropavlovs'ka Church (1840 – village of Krasne), Church of the Birth of the Theotokos (церква Різдва Богородиці) (1799 – urban-type settlement of Novoekonomichne), and the Voznesens'ka Church (1893 – village of Novotroyits'ke). The composer Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) was born here.

Subdivisions
After the reform in July 2020, the raion consists of 14 hromadas:
 * Avdiivka urban hromada
 * Bilozerske urban hromada
 * Hrodivka settlement hromada
 * Dobropillia urban hromada
 * Kryvorizhzhia rural hromada
 * Kurakhove urban hromada
 * Marinka urban hromada
 * Myrnohrad urban hromada
 * Novohrodivka urban hromada
 * Ocheretyne settlement hromada
 * Pokrovsk urban hromada
 * Selydove urban hromada
 * Shakhove rural hromada
 * Udachne settlement hromada

History
In May 2014, the raion requested a referendum for its absorption into the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, citing the instability in the Donetsk Oblast and order and stability in Dnipropetrovsk. Dnipropetrovsk governor Ihor Kolomoisky said that the oblast was willing to do so, assuming it was popular opinion in the raion.

On 21 May 2016, Verkhovna Rada adopted decision to rename Krasnoarmiisk Raion to Pokrovsk Raion and Krasnoarmiisk to Pokrovsk according to the law prohibiting names of Communist origin.

On 18 July 2020, as part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, the number of raions of Donetsk Oblast was reduced to eight, of which only five were controlled by the government, and the area of Pokrovsk Raion was significantly expanded. The January 2020 estimate of the raion population was

The region has been involved in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In January 2024, Russians forces launched missiles from the S-300 system in the Pokrovsk Raion. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported 11 casualties, including five children, as a result of the attack.

In February 2024, Russian propaganda outlets spread information about an alleged Russian missile strike on a concentration of Ukrainian military and "heavy losses" for the Ukrainian Armed Forces near the region. Commander Oleksandr Tarnavskyi refuted their claims, stating it was a Russian information and psychological operation. Tarnavskyi claimed that in this way, "the occupiers divert attention from their daily colossal losses in the direction: on February 12 alone, the occupiers lost 645 soldiers, and from February 5 to 11, a total of 2947 persons."

The northern part of the district belongs to the historical Kramatorsk land.

Demographics
44 different nationalities live in Pokrovsk Raion. They include: Ukrainians, Russians, Belarusians, Germans, Azerbaijanis, Crimean Tatars, Moldavians, Armenians, Greeks and others. As of the 2001 Ukrainian census:


 * Ethnicity
 * Ukrainians: 86.8%
 * Russians: 11.3%
 * Belarusians: 0.7%