Ukraine says troops are still holding out in Pokrovsk
Ukraine’s top military commander said his troops were still holding out in the embattled eastern city of Pokrovsk, which Russia’s forces had finally surrounded in a pincer movement after more than a year of fighting.
Russia has been trying to seize Pokrovsk, called the “gateway to Donetsk”, since mid-2024 as part of its campaign to control the entire Ukrainian province of Donetsk, which it claims to have annexed.
The city, where 70,000 people lived before the war, was almost completely destroyed and its population decreased.
The capture of Pokrovsk would be Russia’s most significant territorial gain in Ukraine since Russian forces captured the devastated city of Avdiivka in early 2024 after one of the bloodiest battles of the war.
Since then, Russia has made steady but slow progress in intense fighting along the 1,000km front line, where tens of thousands of soldiers are believed to have died on both sides.
Ukraine says the costly fight is largely stalemate and territorial losses are marginal; Russia still says it has made significant gains.
“We are holding Pokrovsk,” Ukrainian chief of staff Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Facebook.
“A comprehensive operation is underway to destroy and remove enemy forces from Pokrovsk.”
Russian officials say control of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka in the northeast will allow their forces to advance north towards Donetsk, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the two largest remaining cities under Ukrainian control.
They described the increasing progress in the Pokrovsk region in recent days.
Reuters was unable to verify battlefield accounts because access was restricted on both sides.
Deepstate, the Ukrainian frontline map compiled by compiling data from open-source imagery, shows Russian troops in full control of a small southern part of the city, with much of the rest still depicted as a gray zone, with neither force fully in control.
The Russian Defense Ministry’s Zvezda news outlet reported on Saturday that Ukrainian troops had begun laying down arms in Pokrovsk and published a video of two men it said were surrendering Ukrainian soldiers.
Reuters was unable to verify the video or determine where or when it was shot.
Ukraine said this week that it had landed a helicopter in Pokrovsk with a team of special forces in an attempt to stop Russia’s advance.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday that its soldiers killed all 11 members of a Ukrainian special forces team.
A Ukrainian military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, denied the claim that the special forces were killed and said the operation was continuing.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged on Friday that some Russian troops had infiltrated Pokrovsk but insisted Ukraine was weeding them out.
Zelenskiy said Russia had deployed about 170,000 troops in Donetsk to make a major push to capture the city and achieve a major victory on the battlefield.
Russia also said its troops repelled an attempt by a Ukrainian unit to escape from Hryshyne, northwest of Pokrovsk.
Skirmishes in this region are important because they may indicate that Russian forces are moving closer to cutting off Ukraine’s supply lines to Pokrovsk.
The Ukrainian military said that the situation in Pokrovsk “remains difficult and dynamic” but that the army “managed to improve its tactical position in several areas of the city.”
Russia wants to seize the entire Donbas region, consisting of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces.
Ukraine still controls about 10 percent of Donbas, an area of about 5,000 square kilometers west of Donetsk.
with DPA
