Ukraine said its troops were still defending parts of the small eastern city of Pokrovsk on Tuesday, denying Russian claims to have fully occupied the logistical hub in the Donetsk region.
Fierce fighting also continued in neighbouring Myrnohrad, where Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, said his forces now controlled more than 30 per cent of the mining town and were fulfilling orders from Russian president Vladimir Putin to wipe out Ukrainian units that Moscow claims are surrounded in the area.
Ukraine says its troops still hold northern districts of Pokrovsk, more than a week after Russia announced the capture of the city in what Kyiv called a bid to influence talks over a new push by US president Donald Trump for a deal to end nearly four years of all-out war.
“In Pokrovsk, search and assault operations and the elimination of the enemy in urban areas continue. The enemy is trying to infiltrate the northern part of the city, taking advantage of the fog. These attempts are being blocked and the enemy is being destroyed,” the Ukrainian military’s eastern taskforce said on Tuesday.
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“The situation in the Myrnohrad area remains difficult. Ukrainian units continue to carry out their assigned tasks and hold their positions. The enemy is actively shelling Myrnohrad with aerial bombs ... conducting intensive assault operations, trying to penetrate and gain a foothold in the southeastern outskirts of the city. Defence forces are destroying enemy assault groups using all available means,” the military’s statement added.
“Additional logistics routes to Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad are being organised to ensure the uninterrupted supply of all necessary items to our units and their timely evacuation.”
It is notable that Kyiv’s military now acknowledges the need for evacuation routes, following reports from soldiers in the area that some units had pulled back in recent weeks in the face of a slow but relentless Russian advance that placed some Ukrainian positions at risk of being surrounded.
Gen Gerasimov called the Russian army’s supposed capture of Pokrovsk a “major stage” in seizing all of Donetsk and neighbouring Luhansk regions, which are known collectively as Donbas; Russia calls Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad by their Soviet-era names, Krasnoarmeysk and Dimitrov.
In line with orders from Mr Putin, gen Gerasimov said the “5th separate motor rifle brigade of the 51st Army is destroying Ukrainian units that are surrounded in Dimitrov. As of today, the southern part of the town has been ‘liberated’ and is under our complete control. This accounts for more than 30 per cent of all buildings in the town.”
Even as Ukraine fights a rearguard action in and around Pokrovsk, analysts say it is only a matter of time before the area falls to Russia’s much bigger invasion force.
Ukraine does not have enough soldiers to prevent infiltration all the way along a front line that stretches for 1,200km, and the cloudy, misty weather of early winter has hampered the work of drone teams that Kyiv’s military uses to cover gaps in the line.
Kyiv’s outnumbered forces are also insufficient to mount a counterattack around Pokrovsk, and analysts have said for many weeks that Ukraine should focus on extracting as many troops as possible from the area and strengthening its defences around the two medium-sized cities that it still controls in Donetsk region – Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War says that at its current rate of advance, it would take Russia nearly two more years to seize the rest of the Donetsk region; Putin hopes Trump’s impatient push for a peace deal will deliver the prize much sooner.
