Ukraine says its troops still holding out in Pokrovsk as Moscow says pincer closing
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A Ukrainian artilleryman firing an M114 self-propelled howitzer towards Russian troops, near the front-line town of Pokrovsk, on Oct 15.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Follow topic:
- Ukraine's army chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, stated that troops are "holding Pokrovsk," despite Russian claims of encircling the town, which they aim to use as a gateway to Donetsk.
- Russia claims its forces are advancing around Pokrovsk, potentially cutting off Ukrainian supply lines and that Ukrainian troops are "beginning to lay down arms". Kyiv denies troop deaths.
- Capturing Pokrovsk would be Russia's most significant gain since Avdiivka, furthering their aim to control the entire Donetsk province which they claim to have annexed.
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KYIV/MOSCOW - Ukraine’s top military commander said on Nov 1 his troops were still holding out in the embattled eastern town of Pokrovsk, which Moscow said its forces were at last enclosing in a pincer movement after more than a year of fighting.
Russia has been trying to capture Pokrovsk, dubbed “the gateway to Donetsk”, since mid-2024 in its campaign to control the entirety of Donetsk, a Ukrainian province it claims to have annexed.
The town, home to 70,000 people before the war, has been all but completely destroyed and depopulated.
Capturing Pokrovsk would be the most important Russian territorial gain inside Ukraine since Moscow took the ruined town of Avdiivka in early 2024 after one of the bloodiest battles of the war.
Since then, Russia has made steady but slow gains in intense fighting along the 1,000km front line, believed to have killed tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides.
Kyiv says the costly fighting is largely stalemated and its territorial losses are marginal; Moscow says it is still making important gains.
“We are holding Pokrovsk,” Ukrainian army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Facebook.
“A comprehensive operation to destroy and dislodge enemy forces from Pokrovsk is ongoing.”
Russian officials say control of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka to its north-east would allow Moscow to drive north towards the two biggest remaining Ukrainian-controlled cities in Donetsk - Kramatorsk and Slovyansk.
They have described increasing advances in the Pokrovsk area in recent days. Reuters has not been able to verify the battlefield accounts because access is restricted on both sides.
Deepstate, a Ukrainian map of the front line made by compiling data from open-source images, shows Russian troops in full control of a small southern part of the town, with most of the rest of it still depicted as a grey zone, fully controlled by neither force.
The Russian Defence Ministry’s Zvezda news outlet said on Nov 1 that Ukrainian troops were beginning to lay down arms inside Pokrovsk, and released a video of two men it said were Ukrainian soldiers who had surrendered.
Reuters could not verify the video or determine where or when it was filmed.
Kyiv said this week it had landed a helicopter with a team of special forces in Pokrovsk
A Ukrainian military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, denied that the special forces had been killed and said the operation was continuing.
Russia also said its troops had pushed back an attempt by a Ukrainian unit to break out of Hryshyne, north-west of Pokrovsk. Battles in that area are significant, as they could indicate Russian forces are close to cutting off Ukrainian supply lines to Pokrovsk.
Ukraine’s military said the situation in Pokrovsk “remains difficult and dynamic” but the army had “managed to improve its tactical position in several quarters of the city”.
Russia wants to take the whole of the Donbas region, which comprises Luhansk and Donetsk provinces.
Ukraine still controls about 10 per cent of Donbas - an area of about 5,000 sq km in western Donetsk. REUTERS
