Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has revealed that Russia has amassed approximately 170,000 troops in the eastern Donetsk region, aiming to seize the strategic stronghold of Pokrovsk in a significant push for a battlefield victory.
Speaking on Friday, Mr Zelensky described the situation in Pokrovsk as “difficult”, while simultaneously refuting recent Russian assertions that the devastated city is encircled after over a year of intense fighting.
He conceded that some Russian units had infiltrated, but maintained that Ukrainian defenders are actively “weeding them out”
“There are Russians in Pokrovsk,” Zelensky told a media briefing in Kyiv. “They are being destroyed, gradually destroyed, because, well, we need to preserve our personnel.”
In previous sieges during the almost four years since Russia launched its all-out invasion of its neighbor, Ukraine has pulled out of some places to avoid losing troops. Ukrainian forces are desperately short-handed against Russia’s bigger army.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently claimed that Russian forces are making significant advances on the battlefield, though their progress has been slow and costly in troops and armor.
Putin is trying to persuade the United States, which wants him to seek a peace deal, that Ukraine can’t hold out against Russian military superiority. He has also stressed what he says is Russia’s improving nuclear capability as he refuses to budge from what he says are his country’s legitimate war aims.
Ukraine has been fighting back by hitting targets inside Russia to disrupt military logistics and make Russian civilians feel the effects of war.
Since the beginning of the year, Ukraine has conducted over 160 successful long-range strikes on Russia’s oil extraction and refining facilities, the head of Ukraine’s Security Service, Vasyl Maliuk, told reporters at the briefing.
In September and October alone, Ukraine conducted 20 strikes on Russian oil facilities, Maliuk said.
He claimed that the strikes had brought a 20 per cent drop in oil products on Russia’s domestic market and temporarily halted the operation of 37 per cent of Russia’s oil refining capacity. The claims could not be independently verified.
“Clearly, we are not resting on our achievements. There are many fresh perspectives and new approaches in this work,” Maliuk said. “These include new equipment, new combat units, and new methods and means of communication.”
He said that over this year Ukraine has destroyed nearly half of Russia’s sophisticated Pantsir air defense systems, which have stopped Ukrainian long-range drones.
He also noted that last year Ukrainian forces destroyed one of Russia’s advanced new hypersonic missiles that can fly at 10 times the speed of sound, striking it on the ground at a military base inside Russia,
