Russia said Monday its forces had captured the city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, a key military logistics hub, as well as the city of Vovchansk in the northeast.
The battlefield claims, announced by the Kremlin in a post on Telegram, up the pressure on Kyiv as it seeks to bring the United States on side in fraught U.S.-led negotiations aimed at ending the war.
Pokrovsk, a road and rail hub in the Donetsk region that had around 60,000 inhabitants before the war, has been the target of an intense Russian campaign in recent months.
Last month, Ukraine sent reinforcements, including special forces troops, to the city in a bid to fend off Russia’s attack.
But hundreds of Russian soldiers had managed to infiltrate the city.
Russia’s military chief of staff, Valery Gerasimov, on Sunday “informed (President) Vladimir Putin of the liberation of the cities of Krasnoarmeysk and Vovchansk”, the Kremlin said on Telegram, using the Russian name for Pokrovsk.
The defence ministry posted a video purportedly showing Russian soldiers raising their country’s flag over Pokrovsk’s central square.
The capture, if confirmed, would complicate Ukraine’s supply lines elsewhere on the front and could give Russia a launchpad to advance farther north and west.
It would also put a nearby Ukrainian army garrison at risk of being encircled by Russian forces.
According to data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian forces made their largest territorial advance in Ukraine in a year during November. Over the month, Russia seized approximately 701 square kilometres of territory, the second-largest territorial advance of the war after November 2024.
