Russian forces edge closer to a key eastern Ukraine city in ‘intense’ fighting

Fighting around the key eastern Ukraine city of Pokrovsk is “extremely intense” after a months-long Russian push, Ukraine’s top military commander said, with analysts estimating Russian forces are now within just a few miles of the city.

Ukrainian troops repelled nearly 40 Russian attempts to storm defences around Pokrovsk over the previous 24 hours, the general staff said in a battlefield report on Thursday.

“Russian occupiers are throwing all available forces forward, attempting to break through the defences of our troops,” Ukrainian army chief general Oleksandr Syrskyi said in a Facebook post.

His forces are outnumbered, he said.

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Ukraine’s stretched defences in Donetsk have been creaking since early this year under a fierce Russian drive to capture its neighbour’s entire eastern Donbas region.

Russian forces are trying to overwhelm Ukraine’s battlefield defences with sheer numbers of troops and powerful glide bombs that blast fortifications to smithereens.

Pokrovsk, which had a population of about 60,000 before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, is one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region.

Its capture would compromise Ukraine’s defensive abilities and supply routes and would bring Russia closer to its stated goal of seizing the entire Donetsk region.

But Ukraine’s dogged resistance and Western military aid have rendered the gains costly for the Kremlin in losses of troops and armour.

A major worry for the Kyiv government is that tens of billions of dollars of key US military support to hold Russia at bay may dry up under President-elect Donald Trump.

The Institute for the Study of War estimated late on Wednesday that Russian forces have moved to within about four miles of Pokrovsk, approaching from the south.

The Donetsk operation has had “a massive cost” for Russian forces, the Washington-based think tank said.

Those losses “will temper their ability to translate these gains into more far-reaching offensive operations” in the months ahead, it said.

Though the Russian push has been slow moving, it has recently accelerated in Donetsk and compelled Ukrainian defenders to make localised retreats. Major battlefield victories have eluded the Russians.

Ukrainian media have reported tensions between Ukraine’s commanders as the military pressure has built. Unconfirmed reports said Mr Syrskyi, the military chief, had personally taken charge of some brigades around Pokrovsk.

A renowned Ukrainian military officer, Serhii Filimonov, commander of the “Da Vinci Wolves” battalion of the 59th Motorised Brigade, described Pokrovsk’s defence as a “disaster.”

Senior officers are placing “unrealistic” demands on units and are unfamiliar with circumstances on the front line, Mr Filimonov wrote on his Telegram channel this week.

Also on Thursday, a special board of governors meeting of the UN’s nuclear watchdog criticised strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure that is critical for the safety of the country’s nuclear power plants, though it did not mention Russia by name.

Ukraine has four nuclear plants, including Zaporizhzhia, which is Europe’s largest and one of the 10 biggest in the world.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly warned of the dangers of a Ukrainian atomic plant – or the off-site electrical installations important for its safety – being hit in the fighting.

Russia has been attacking Ukraine’s power grid in an effort to demoralise civilians left in the dark with no running water or heating and disrupt Ukrainian defence manufacturing.

The IAEA meeting in Vienna was convened at the request of Ukraine.

The watchdog’s board supported the resolution criticising the strikes with 22 votes in favour and 10 abstentions, with China and Russia opposing it and one country not voting, according to two diplomats with knowledge of the vote.