Zelensky visits troops near the enemy front-line town of Pokrovsk

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he visited troops near the city of Pokrovsk, where the fiercest fighting is currently taking place on the front line between Russia and Ukraine.

Zelensky posted photos showing him meeting with staff at a command post in the Dobropilya sector, about 20 km (12 miles) north of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region.

Kiev’s top military commander, Alexander Sirsky, said on Monday that Ukraine was increasing pressure on the Dobropolya front to “force the enemy to disperse its forces and make it impossible to concentrate its main efforts in the Pokrovsk region.”

Russia has been trying to capture Pokrovsk – a strategic front-line city and logistics hub – for more than a year.

Although it took them months to approach the city’s borders, Russian troops have already penetrated it, and on Friday Zelensky said Russia had massed 170,000 troops on its outskirts.

Both Ukraine and Russia continue to make claims and counterclaims about the situation in and around Pokrovsk.

Taking Pokrovsk could give Moscow access to the rest of Donetsk, including the cities of Kramatorsk, Slavyansk, Konstantinovka and Druzhkovka – the so-called “fortress belt”.

General Sirski admitted that his troops were withstanding “the pressure of a multi-thousand-strong enemy group”, but denied that they were surrounded. Meanwhile, Russian military bloggers claim that 90% of Pokrovsk is under Moscow’s control.

Unverified videos posted on social media show instances of close combat, drone attacks and street fights there.

The US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said Russian forces were operating with “increasing comfort” in the city, which once had a population of 60,000 but is now almost entirely emptied of civilians and largely destroyed.

Further east, Moscow’s troops are also reportedly targeting the town of Mirnograd, which would put Ukrainian soldiers at risk of encirclement.

Heavy drone activity has disrupted many logistics routes, making evacuations and the delivery of ammunition and vehicles nearly impossible.

On Monday, Zelensky said Russia had “not been successful” in Pokrovsk in recent days, but acknowledged that “things have not been easy” for Ukrainian forces in the area.

He added that a third of all front-line clashes take place in Pokrovsk, and half of all planning bombs used by the Russians are launched in the city. Earlier last week, the Ukrainian president said Moscow’s troops in the area outnumbered Kiev’s troops eight to one.

Some Ukrainian commentators have criticized the government’s efforts to continue defending Pokrovsk, saying troops are at risk.

In a post accompanying photos of his visit to Dobropolya, Zelensky on Tuesday wrote: “This is our country, this is our East, and we will certainly do everything possible to keep it Ukrainian.”

Russia now controls 81% of Donetsk Oblast and 99% of neighboring Luhansk, which together make up Donbas.

Moscow has never wavered in its ambition to seize the entire area, which Russian President Vladimir Putin declared annexed in 2022, even though it does not fully control it.

However, his progress along the front line is hampered, and the occupation of the heavily fortified towns in northern Donetsk could come at a huge cost in both manpower and resources.

Far from the front lines, Russia continues to pound Ukrainian cities, targeting the country’s energy facilities as winter approaches.

A large-scale drone attack overnight Monday targeted the southern Black Sea port of Odessa, damaging industrial facilities, causing fires and affecting the local power supply. At least 15 civilians were killed and 44 wounded in combined drone and missile attacks across the country over the weekend.

Ukraine continues to fight back, mostly using drones to target industrial sites in Russia and border regions.

On Tuesday, Kiev said it had attacked a petrochemical plant in the Bashkortostan region and a refinery in the Nizhny Novgorod region, while earlier this week a drone explosion killed a woman and wounded three others in the Russian border region of Belgorod.