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Russian troops are going around the vital logistics hub of
Pokrovsk, where a steadfast Ukrainian defense has kept them at
bay, and are taking aim at a highway that leads from there to
the central Ukraine city of Dnipro, Maj. Viktor Trehubov, a
local Ukrainian army spokesperson, told The Associated Press.
That route is crucial for supplies feeding Ukrainian forces in
the entire region. Cutting the highway traffic would also
severely weaken Pokrovsk.
“So far, they have not achieved their goal and (Ukrainian
forces) are working to ensure that they do not achieve it in the
future — just as they have not been successful in other attempts
to bypass the city,” Trehubov said in a WhatsApp message.
Ukraine’s army is under severe strain along parts of the
approximately 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, especially
in the eastern Donetsk region where Pokrovsk is located.
After almost three years of war, Ukrainian units are depleted
and are outnumbered by Russian forces. Though its battlefield
progress has been slow and costly, momentum in the war is in
Russia’s favor and its onslaught has gradually swallowed up
towns and villages, especially in Donetsk. The Russian Defense
Ministry claimed Monday its forces had seized the village of
Pishchane.
In his daily video address to the nation late Sunday, Ukraine
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said fighting around Pokrovsk was
“the most intense” in recent days.
In separate comments to local medida, Trehubov, the army
spokesperson, speculated that Russia's heavy losses of troops
and armor in the Donetsk operation had prompted it to alter its
strategy.
“Now they are acting more cautiously,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is pressing his advantage ahead
of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s arrival in the White
House next week. Trump says he wants to bring a swift end to the
war, though he hasn’t publicized details of his plans.
In 2022, Moscow illegally annexed the Donetsk and neighboring
Luhansk regions, which make up the economically important Donbas
industrial area, together with the southeastern provinces of
Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. But Russian forces don’t fully control
any of them.
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