KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — The fighting around the important city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine is “extremely intense” following a prolonged Russian advance, said Ukraine’s top military commander, and analysts estimated that Russian forces are now just a few kilometers away from the city.
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Ukrainian troops repelled nearly 40 Russian attempts to assault the defenses around Pokrovsk in the last 24 hours, reported the State Department in a battle report on Thursday.
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"The Russian occupiers are throwing all available forces forward, trying to break through our troops' defenses," said the head of the Ukrainian Army, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, in a Facebook post on Wednesday night. He stated that his forces are outnumbered.
Ukraine's pressured defenses in Donetsk have been losing ground since the beginning of this year to a fierce Russian offensive to take over the entire eastern Ukrainian region of Donbass. Russian forces are trying to overwhelm Ukraine's defenses with sheer troop superiority and powerful glide bombs that destroy fortifications.
Pokrovsk, which had a population of around 60,000 people before the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, is one of Ukraine's main defensive strongholds and an important logistical center in the Donetsk region. Its capture would compromise Ukraine's defensive capabilities and supply routes, bringing Russia closer to its stated goal of seizing the entire Donetsk region.
But the stubborn resistance of Ukraine and Western military aid have made the gains costly for the Kremlin in terms of troop and weaponry losses.
A major concern for the Kiev government is that tens of billions of dollars in crucial US military support to keep Russia at bay may run out when President-elect Donald Trump's term begins.
The Institute for the Study of War estimated on Wednesday night that Russian forces have moved to about 6 kilometers (just under 4 miles) from Pokrovsk, approaching from the south.
The operation in Donetsk has had "a huge cost" for the Russian forces, said the Washington-based group of experts. Those losses "will moderate their ability to translate these gains into broader offensive operations" in the coming months, they indicated.
Although the Russian advance has been slow, it has recently accelerated in Donetsk and has forced Ukrainian defenders to make localized withdrawals. Major victories on the battlefield have eluded the Russians.
Ukrainian media have reported on tensions between Ukraine's commanders as military pressure has escalated. Unconfirmed reports said that Syrskyi, the military chief, had personally taken command of some brigades around Pokrovsk.
A renowned Ukrainian military officer, Serhii Filimonov, commander of the "Da Vinci Wolves" battalion of the 59th Motorized Brigade, described the defense of Pokrovsk as a "disaster".
This week, Filimonov wrote on his Telegram channel that senior officers are imposing "unrealistic" demands on the units and are not familiar with the circumstances on the front line.
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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.