Russian Troops Attack Unstopped Targeting Ukrainian Logistics Center At Pokrovsk

Vitaly Never/TASS/DOK

JAKARTA - Ukraine's top commander said Russian forces launched a relentless offensive to try to advance to the city of Pokrovsk, a logistics center in the east.

Nearly 29 months since the massive invasion, Ukraine has stepped up mobilization efforts to address labor shortages and strengthened by supplies of western artillery shells, but Russian troops continue to advance.

"The enemy did not pay attention to their high enough loss rate and continued to move towards Pokrovsk," Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi said.

Pokrovsk is less than 25 km (15 miles) from Russia's occupied territory, according to an open source intelligence battlefield map, and is located at a crossroads and railway lines that make it an important logistics point for the military and civilians in the eastern region.

"Active combat operations with different intensities occur across the front lines," said Syrskyi.

Heavy fighting, he said, also took place near several villages and cities in the eastern region, including Krasnohorivka and Chasiv Yar, the strategic city at the top of the hill he seized would bring Russia closer to threatening key cities in the Kyiv-controlled Donetsk region.

Russia launched 39 attacks on Pokrovsk front lines in the past 24 hours out of a total of 117 attacks recorded along the front lines, the military said in its daily battlefield reading.

Russian troops seized two villages in the eastern region on weekends, Russian media said, citing the Ministry of Defense.

Although the exhausted Kyiv forces this year experienced setbacks as Russia returned to attack and continued to exert pressure, the progress Moscow made was slow.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who traveled to China this week on a diplomatic trip, estimates Russia controls 17.68 percent of Ukraine compared to 17.61 percent on January 1, 2024.

A senior NATO official said this month Russia lacked ammunition and troops to carry out a massive offensive in Ukraine and needed to secure a large supply of ammunition from other countries beyond the number they already had to do so.