KYIV: Russian forces are staging their heaviest assaults close to the strategic japanese metropolis of Pokrovsk, Kyiv’s army mentioned on Monday (Jul 29), threatening a key provide route for Ukrainian troops struggling to fend off Moscow’s 29-month-old invasion.
Combating on the Pokrovsk entrance was the fiercest anyplace within the war-scarred east, the Common Workers mentioned in a daily battlefield replace, including that Ukraine had fought off 52 Russian assaults there within the final 24 hours.
Pokrovsk, a transport hub with a pre-war inhabitants of 61,000, lies on a predominant street that serves as an essential provide path to different embattled Ukrainian-held outposts, such because the cities of Chasiv Yar and Kostiantynivka.
“The best focus of enemy assaults was round Zhelanne and Novooleksandrivka,” it mentioned, citing two villages that mislead the east of Pokrovsk.
Russia’s defence ministry mentioned on Sunday that its forces had taken the villages of Prohres and Yevhenivka in Ukraine’s japanese Donetsk area. Each settlements sit east of Pokrovsk. Kyiv didn’t touch upon the declare.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion in Feb 2022 and nonetheless occupies almost a fifth of Ukraine. Ukrainian forces repelled the Russians from the outskirts of Kyiv early within the warfare and recaptured territory within the east and south later in 2022. However since a failed counteroffensive in 2023 Kyiv’s troops have primarily been on the defensive this 12 months.
