Key town is confronted by a 'multi-thousand' Russian force, acknowledges a senior commander from Ukraine
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Pokrovsk is a chokepoint vital to any potential advance of Russian efforts to take over the rest of Donbas
The chief military commander of Ukraine has recognized that his troops are dealing with “hard circumstances” when it comes to protecting Pokrovsk from the huge Russian army, which is a town located on the eastern front line and is very important strategically.
General Oleksandr Syrskyi told that the Ukrainian soldiers were up against a “multi-thousand enemy” army, yet on the other hand he rejected the Russian advances that the Ukrainians had already been surrounded or cut off.
He admitted that the best special forces had been sent to guard the crucial supply routes which, according to the army sources, were all under Russian artillery attack.
The press office of the defence ministry in Moscow stated that the Ukrainian soldiers were giving up and that 11 of their special troops had been killed after being brought in by a helicopter, which was denied by the government of Kyiv.
In Saturday’s posts on Telegram, Gen Syrskyi remarked that he was “back on the front” to personally listen to the latest reports from the military commanders on the battlefield in the eastern Donetsk area.
Through a brief video, Syrskyi is displayed analyzing the maps of the battlefield along with other commanders, among whom is Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov.
The exact time and location where the video was made is not known.
Before this, Ukrainian media reported that Budanov had entered the area to supervise the operation being carried out by the special forces.
The presence of the special forces indicates that the authorities in Kyiv have decided to try and maintain the control of the town, which has been the object of the Russian offensive for over a year.
The 7th Rapid Response Corps of Ukraine announced on Saturday that the Ukrainian forces “have improved [their] tactical position” in Pokrovsk – however, the situation was still “difficult and dynamic”.
Right before the weekend, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine underscored the importance that the defense of Pokrovsk was a “priority” for him.
More and more reports have come in of Russian troops advancing around the strategically located town that is just to the west of the regional capital Donetsk, which has already been captured by the Russians.
Russia claims to have killed Ukrainian special forces who landed near the town by helicopter.
Images, which were released on Friday, seem to depict a Ukrainian Black Hawk helicopter dropping approximately 10 soldiers close to the town of Pokrovsk, but the exact place and time could not be verified.
According to the Russian defense ministry, it was able to stop the infiltration of the Ukrainian military intelligence special forces to the northwest of the town, killing all 11 soldiers who were brought in by helicopter.
DeepState, a Ukrainian open-source monitoring organization, has classified almost half of the area around Pokrovsk as a “grey zone”, which means that neither side has complete control over that area.
A military source in Donetsk, speaking to the BBC, stated that Ukrainian forces were not encircled, but their supply routes were being attacked by Russian forces.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War indicated that the Ukrainian military had “marginally advanced” in their recent counter-offensive operations north of Pokrovsk but referred to the town as being a “mainly contested ‘grey zone'”.
The Russian government is pressing for a peace agreement that would entail the surrender of Donetsk and Luhansk (the two regions collectively known as Donbas), including the territory that is not currently under its control.
In February 2022, Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and has so far occupied around 20% of the Ukrainian land, among which is the Crimea peninsula that Moscow had annexed back in 2014.
Pokrovsk is an important center for transportation and logistics, and its capture might accelerate Russian plans to take over the entire region.
However, Kyiv believes that losing the town would have the opposite effect, as it would strengthen the Russian argument in front of the US that the latter’s military support is not in vain – and thus, that the West should yield to its demands.
The US capital has been getting more and more irritated with the Russian government’s stance on the peace talks and, as a result, US President Donald Trump has announced sanctions against the two biggest Russian oil companies and cancelled his meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
The Ukrainian president has publicly supported the Trump’s suggestion of a ceasefire that would stop the war at the current front lines.
Vladimir Putin is not willing to negotiate, however, and continues to pursue his pre-invasion hard-line demands which Moscow has threatened to consider as a surrender by Ukraine along with its Western partners.
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