Surrounded In Pokrovsk, Ukrainian Military Attacks Russian Troops In Dobropillia

The impact of the Russian attack on Ukraine/DOK PHOTO via Instagram @zelenskyy_official

JAKARTA - Ukraine's top general said Kyiv forces stepped up attacks on Russian troops around the city of Dobropillia in eastern Ukraine to ease pressure on the center of the Pokrovsk fighting.

As reported by Reuters, Friday, November 7, Oleksandr Syrskyi also said Ukrainian forces are generally focused on securing logistics lines and encouraging Russian troops out of urban buildings.

Russia's Ministry of Defense previously said its troops had advanced in the devastated city of Pokrovsk, Ukraine and engaged in house-to-house fighting in an attempt to expel Ukrainian troops from the city.

Moscow said seizing Pokrovsk, dubbed the "gate to Donetsk" by Russian media, would give it a basis to move north towards Ukraine's two largest cities still in the Donetsk - Kramatorsk and Sloviansk regions.

Russia wants to seize the entire Donbas region, which includes Donetsk and its neighboring provinces, Luhansk.

Currently Ukraine still controls about 10% of the Donbas area of about 5,000 square km (1,930 square miles).

Russia has threatened Pokrovsk for more than a year, using clamps to try to surround it and threaten supply lines, instead of the deadly frontal attack it used to seize the city of Bakhmut by 2023.

Kyiv acknowledged the situation in Pokrovsk had become difficult in recent days, but said its troops were still fighting there, but denied they were surrounded.

"The 2nd Army strike group continues to destroy the formation of the trapped Ukrainian Armed Forces in the eastern part of the central district and in the western industrial region," the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Russia claims to have captured 64 buildings in the city, which used to be home to 60,000 people, over the past 24 hours and fended off Ukrainian attacks from Hryshyne in the west.

Russian troops are just a few kilometers away from closing their clamps around the adjacent Pokrovsk and Myronohrad, and are also approaching Ukrainian troops in Kupiansk in Kharkiv region.