Ukraine Faces Fierce Battles With Russia At Pokrovsk

JAKARTA - President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces are facing fierce fighting around the city of Pokrovsk, a logistics center near where Russia almost every day announcing the seizure of villages.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine's top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, reported the situation around Pokrovsk is currently the focus of his attention in the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

"All operational directives have been covered, with a special focus on Pokrovsk. Pokrovsk received the greatest attention," Zelenskyy said.

Ukrainian troops, according to Zelenskyy, have also "continued to act" in border areas in the northern Sumy region, where Russian troops have gained a foothold in recent weeks.

Syrskyi, in a separate report on messaging app Telegram, described Pokrovsk and five other sectors as one of the toughest battlefields along the 1,000 km (620 miles) frontline.

"The Russian Federation pays the highest price for its 'summer attack' attempt," Syrskyi wrote.

Russian troops have been trying for months to approach Pokrovsk, the center of highways and trains whose population was around 60,000 before the war had almost been evacuated.

Syrskyi in May reported Kyiv forces had stabilized the situation around the city, which is also the location of Ukraine's only coal mine that produces cob coal for the country's steel industry.

Russia's Ministry of Defense on Thursday announced the seizure of two villages on both sides of the Zvivrovsk Zvivove in the west and Novoekonomichne in the east. The third village near the city of Novotoreske was declared by Moscow to have been "freed" earlier this week.

Ukrainian officials do not recognize the villages have changed hands.

Ukraine's military general staff said in its report that two of the 'Zvivive and Novoekonomicne' were in areas where Russian troops tried to penetrate Ukraine's defenses.

In the Sumy region, where Russian troops are trying to build what Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin calls a "barrier zone", a popular Ukrainian military blog DeepState, said Kyiv forces had reclaimed a previously missing village.

DeepState, which relies on open source reports to trace the whereabouts of Russian troops, said Ukrainian forces had restored control of the village of Kindrativka.