Defence of Donetsk town a priority, says Zelensky, as special forces deployed

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the defense of Pokrovsk was a “priority” as elite special forces were deployed to the embattled town on the eastern front.

Ukrainian army sources told the BBC that special forces from military intelligence and assault groups were being used as regular infantry to protect supply lines to troops holding the town in the Donbas region.

There are increasing reports of Russian advances around the strategic town west of Donetsk. Ukraine denied claims that its forces were surrounded.

As part of the peace deal, Moscow wants Kiev to hand over the entire Donbas region, including parts it does not currently control.

Russia currently controls about a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, including the Crimean peninsula it annexed in 2014.

The deployment of special forces shows that authorities in Kiev are determined to hold on to the town, which Russia has been trying to capture for more than a year.

According to local media reports, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov was in the region to personally supervise the operation.

Pokrovsk is a key transportation and supply hub whose capture could pave the way for Russian efforts to take over the rest of the region.

But Kiev also believes that its capture would aid Russia’s efforts to convince the United States that its military campaign has been successful and that it should therefore yield to Western demands.

Washington has become increasingly frustrated with the Kremlin’s failure to advance peace negotiations, resulting in US President Donald Trump. Sanctions against the two largest oil producers and cancellation of summit plans With Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Zelensky stated that Trump is open to a ceasefire proposal that would freeze the war on the current front lines. Russia has publicly insisted that Ukrainian troops leave the rest of Donbas.

In his nightly speech, the Ukrainian president said: “Pokrovsk is our priority. We continue to destroy the occupier and this is the most important thing… They must be stopped where they reach and destroyed there.”

Images shared with news agencies showed a Ukrainian Black Hawk helicopter deploying approximately 10 soldiers near Pokrovsk, but its location and date could not be confirmed.

The Russian defense ministry said all 11 soldiers who landed by helicopter were killed, claiming that Ukrainian military intelligence prevented the deployment of special forces to the northwest of the town.

Ukrainian open-source monitoring group DeepState estimates that about half of Pokrovsk is in a so-called “gray zone” where neither side has full control.

A military source in Donetsk told the BBC that Ukrainian forces were not surrounded but their supply lines were under fire from Russian troops.

“The situation of the city has changed so much” [Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, General] “Syrsky is now sending elite units to the city to stabilize it,” he said.

These include special forces and assault units in Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence agency (GUR), he said.

“Fightings are currently ongoing for the train station and industrial park in the west. The battles for the industrial park have roughly reduced logistics from vehicle-based to pedestrian-based.”

“The Ukrainian Armed Forces are not under a physical siege, but an operational siege; this means that all logistics are under fire control.”

The US-based Institute for the Study of War said Ukrainian forces had “made little progress” during recent counter-offensives north of Pokrovsk but that the town was “essentially a disputed ‘grey zone'”.