Ukrainian artillerymen get into a car after a combat mission near the frontline town of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region earlier this month.
Fighting for control of the strategic hub of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine is intensifying, with the Russian Defence Ministry claiming to have eliminated a group of Ukrainian special forces sent to help defend the area.
In recent weeks, Russian units have begun penetrating Pokrovsk itself and have closed in on the last resupply routes used to sustain Ukrainian forces in the town.
The Ukrainian special forces had landed in a helicopter on the northwestern outskirts of Pokrovsk, according to the Russian Ministry of Defence. Drone footage shared by an unofficial Russian Telegram channel showed Ukrainian soldiers fanning out from a Blackhawk helicopter. Eleven of the troops that had landed were killed, the Defence Ministry claimed. It’s unclear when the mission took place.
A source in Ukrainian intelligence told CNN that the claim was untrue. Stabilisation efforts led by the head of Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, continue in Pokrovsk, the source added.
The Ukrainian 7th Aerial Assault Corps also reported a successful landing in the Pokrovsk area. “It was a complex operation that required the synchronised actions of various units,” it said.
Ukrainian units have managed to improve their tactical position in several districts of the city, according to the Corps. “We are increasing the number of assault groups in Pokrovsk,” it said, adding that 85 Russian soldiers had been killed in Pokrovsk over the past week.
The Ukrainian military’s commander, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said Saturday that Pokrovsk and the neighbouring town of Myrnohrad were “not surrounded or blocked, and we are doing everything we can to maintain logistics.”
“A comprehensive operation to destroy and dislodge enemy forces from Pokrovsk is ongoing,” Syrskyi said, adding that he had visited the area to coordinate its defence.
Enemy units continued “to attempt to infiltrate residential areas and cut off our supply routes,” he added.
For its part, the Russian Defence Ministry asserted Saturday that its units “continue to destroy surrounded Ukrainian Armed Forces formations in the area of the railway station” in Pokrovsk, and had repelled several attempts by Ukrainian forces to break out of the town. It added that the encirclement of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad was tightening.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that about 200 Russian troops had infiltrated Pokrovsk. Geolocated video has shown Russian soldiers in the southern part of the town, moving in small groups.
Ukrainian forces have tried to counter-attack, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, and had marginally advanced north of the town.
Were Pokrovsk to fall, it would be the largest urban area to be taken by Russian forces since they seized Bakhmut in May 2023. The town is a junction for road and railway lines, and occupying it would bring Russian forces closer to the larger cities of Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka in the industrial belt of Donetsk.
According to the unofficial Ukrainian Deep State website, which analyses the battlefield, Russian forces gained 267 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory in October — the same as in September.
Efforts by the US President Donald Trump to get a ceasefire agreed in Ukraine have come to nothing, with the Kremlin insisting that the root causes of the conflict – including NATO’s expansion eastwards and what it has called the “Nazification” of Ukraine – must be addressed before there can be a truce.
Moscow has said that the original goals of what it calls its Special Military Operation are non-negotiable: sovereignty over four eastern regions of Ukraine, including Donetsk.
Pipelines blown up. As Russian forces edge forward along several parts of the frontline, Ukraine has continued its long-range efforts to destroy and disrupt Russia’s energy and military infrastructure.
On Friday, Ukrainian saboteurs blew up three pipelines carrying fuel in the Moscow region, according to the country’s defence officials – the latest attack in a campaign by Kyiv to target refineries, pumping stations, and pipelines.
“The ‘Koltsevoy’ oil pipeline, which supplied the Russian occupation army,” was disabled on Friday in a special operation, according to a statement from Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence (DI).
