Ukrainian soldiers walk among sunflowers outside the town of Pokrovsk as they move to their positions amid Russia’s offensive in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. | Photo: Reuters
the military authorities Pokrovsk, a city in eastern Ukraine on Friday (August 16, 2024) urged citizens to expedite their evacuation as Russian army He is rapidly approaching a location that has been Moscow’s prime target for months.
Pokrovsk authorities said in a Telegram post that Russian troops were “advancing at a rapid pace. With each passing day, the time to collect personal belongings and leave for safe areas is decreasing.”
Ukrainian troops are attempting to retake the area. The Kremlin’s military focus By embarking on an adventure away from the front lines in Ukraine Cross-border infiltration in Russia’s Kursk regionBut Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned on Thursday (August 15, 2024) that Pokrovsk and other nearby towns in the Donetsk region were “facing the most intense Russian attacks.”
Goose, an aerial reconnaissance soldier from Ukraine’s 68th Separate Airborne Brigade, which is helping defend the city, reported. The Associated Press Over the phone on Friday (August 16, 2024), he said he faces the same deadly monotony every day: From his position, he flies a drone to identify Russian infantry. After the coordinates are relayed, mortars sound. Then, more and more infantry come in like an endless wave.
“Since the Kursk operation, I have not seen any changes. The Russians have the same tactics of infantry attacks: they are advancing, advancing,” said Goose, who spoke using only his call sign in keeping with Ukrainian military rules. With its powerful aerial bombs, Russia is destroying any hopes Ukrainians have of holding the territory, he said. “The Russians are destroying and advancing, destroying and advancing,” he added.
Read this also, Ukrainian army chief says his forces now control about 1,000 square kilometres of Russia’s Kursk region
The urgent need to evacuate civilians from Pokrovsk underscores the huge risk Ukraine is taking to spark a war with Russia through the Kursk offensive, which began on 6 August.
The attack is a bold attempt to change the dynamics of the two-and-a-half-year-long conflict, but it could backfire and leave Ukraine’s weakened defense at the mercy of Russian pressure. The Kremlin’s forces have had battlefield speed and superior strength in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine since the spring.
Ukraine feels it can handle the strain on its resources involved in the attack in Kursk without harming Donetsk. Russia feels it can contain the incursion into Donetsk without any let-up.
“They can’t both be right,” Nigel Gould-Davies, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said on Thursday. “The outcome hangs in the balance.”
Russia’s slow push into Donetsk this year has proven costly in troops and armor, but it has also yielded benefits.
Pokrovsk, which had a pre-war population of around 60,000, is one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a major logistics hub in the Donetsk region. Capturing it would affect Ukraine’s defensive capabilities and supply routes, and move Russia closer to its stated goal of occupying the entire Donetsk region.
Officials in Pokrovsk met with people to inform them about the evacuation. People were offered shelter in western Ukraine, where they would be housed in hostels and individual houses prepared for them.
“As the front line approaches Pokrovsk, the need to move to a safer place is becoming increasingly urgent,” the local administration said.
Meanwhile, in Kursk, Ukrainian troops have taken full control of Sudzha, Zelensky said on Thursday. It is the largest Russian city to fall to Ukrainian forces since the start of their offensive 10 days ago, and the success has boosted Ukrainian morale while embarrassing the Kremlin.
A family who fled from Sudzha showed on Russian state television the shattered windows of their car, the result of a road attack.
“At the turn they were firing, there were landmines, we went around the landmines. Then we were moving, the drone hit us at Bondarevka,” Nikolai Netbayev said.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday that the military thwarted Ukrainian advance attempts in the Gordeev areas, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Sudzha, and Ruskoye Porechnoye, 13 kilometers (8 miles) north of Sudzha.
In other developments, the Russian organisation People’s Front said two of its volunteer workers were killed by Ukrainian shelling in the Kursk region while they were on a mission to evacuate residents.
A hypermarket in the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk was destroyed by Ukrainian shelling, burning to ashes, according to local authorities. Eleven people were reported injured.