By Andrew Osborn
MOSCOW, Dec 2 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin hailed what his commanders told him was the full Russian capture of the city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine as an important victory that would help Moscow fulfil its wider war aims, but Kyiv said its troops were still there.
Here are key facts about Pokrovsk, which Russians call by its Soviet-era name of Krasnoarmeysk, and the long battle for its control, which began in earnest in mid-2024.
WHERE IS POKROVSK?
Pokrovsk is a road and rail junction in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region with a pre-war population of some 60,000 people. The city was once an important logistics hub for the Ukrainian army, as it is situated on a key road that was used to supply other frontline outposts. The conflict has pulverised apartment buildings, left cratered roads, and most people have now fled.
Ukraine’s only mine producing coking coal – used in its once vast steel industry – is around 6 miles (10 km) west of Pokrovsk. Mining operations there have been suspended.
Pokrovsk is also home to the region’s largest technical university, which now stands abandoned, damaged by shelling.
WHY DOES RUSSIA WANT POKROVSK?
Russia wants to take the whole of the Donbas region, which comprises the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. Ukraine still controls about 10% of Donbas – an area of about 5,000 sq km (1,930 sq miles) in mostly northern Donetsk.
Capturing Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka to its northeast, which Russian forces are also trying to envelop, would give Moscow a platform to drive north towards the two biggest remaining Ukrainian-controlled cities in Donetsk – Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
It would also leave Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region to the west, where Russian forces say they have already established a foothold, more vulnerable to Russian advances.
Pokrovsk would be Moscow’s most important single territorial gain inside Ukraine since it took the ruined city of Avdiivka in early 2024.
Moscow wants to convince the West that its capture of the remainder of the Donetsk region is inevitable and that it would be better for Kyiv to voluntarily hand it over as part of a peace deal.
Ukraine, which has so far rejected that idea, is anxious to show Western partners that it can make the Russians pay a heavy price for relatively modest territorial gains and therefore deserves continued military and financial aid.
Putin says Donbas is now legally part of Russia. Kyiv and most Western nations reject Moscow’s seizure of the territory as an illegal land grab.
WHY HAS THE BATTLE GONE ON SO LONG?
Russia has been threatening Pokrovsk for more than a year. Instead of its full-frontal assaults in earlier battles, such as the bloody campaign for the similar-sized city of Bakhmut, Russia’s military has been using a pincer movement to gradually encircle Pokrovsk and threaten Ukrainian supply lines.
Russian forces have harried Ukrainian troops by sending in small units and drones to disrupt logistics and sow chaos before sending in larger reinforcements.
Ukraine says Russia’s offensive has seen its forces sustain huge losses. Moscow says it is Ukraine, with a significantly smaller population, that is at risk of running out of men and that its own slower tactics are designed to minimise casualties.
An incursion into Russia’s Kursk region by Ukrainian forces last year, which Moscow fought back, slowed the Russian attack on Pokrovsk.
WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW?
A video released by the Russian Defence Ministry showed troops holding the Russian flag aloft in a square in what Reuters confirmed was the city centre as what sounded like artillery fire echoed in the distance. Reuters could not confirm when the video was filmed.
Ukrainian forces were still holding the northern part of the city, the Ukrainian military told Reuters, saying they had attacked Russian troops in southern Pokrovsk.
Reuters was unable to verify battlefield reports from either side because of reporting restrictions in the war zone.
The release of the video with Putin late on Monday looked calculated to coincide with the build-up to talks the Kremlin chief is set to hold with U.S. negotiators in Moscow later on Tuesday.
Valery Solodchuk, commander of the Centre group of forces, told Putin that Russian troops were proceeding with clean-up operations against Ukrainian forces around Pokrovsk and the nearby town of Myrnohrad, where he said up to 2,000 Ukrainian troops were trapped.
Ukraine’s military said on Monday it had fought off more than 40 Russian attacks in the Pokrovsk area.
(Reporting by Andrew Osborn in Moscow Additional reporting by Felix Hoske in Kyiv; Editing by Peter Graff, Alexandra Hudson)
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.