
THE INDEPENDENT | Published January 30, 2025
Russian forces have captured hundreds of square miles of eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region over the past year as part of their advance on the city of Pokrovsk.
Vladimir Putin’s forces are focusing on attacking on the outskirts of a key eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk amid reports of heavy troop losses.
Around half of Russian attacks across the 620-mile front have focused on the area around the city, seen as a gateway to the rest of the Donetsk region, over the last week, Kyiv said.
“The enemy is trying to advance around the clock,” Maksym Bakulin, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian National Guard units fighting in Pokrovsk said.
The Russian defence ministry also claimed its troops had taken control of the village of Novoielyzavetivka, less than 10 miles to the southwest of Pokrovsk. The Ukrainian military has not confirmed Russia’s claims but DeepState, a Ukrainian war tracker known to have close ties to the military, records the town as being occupied.
Six people have also been killed after Russian drones blasted a hole in an apartment building in Sumy, northeastern Ukraine, the town’s authorities said. Ten others were injured.
“This is a terrible tragedy, a terrible Russian crime. It is very important that the world does not stop putting pressure on Russia for this terror,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky added.
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SOURCE: www.independent.co.uk
RELATED: Russia focuses on seizing Ukraine’s Pokrovsk amid reports of heavy losses
Russia concentrates on the Donetsk region hoping for a decisive breakthrough, as Ukraine claims Moscow has lost almost 835,000 men.
AL JAZEERA | Published January 30, 2025
About half of Russian assaults across a 1,000km- (620-mile-) front have focused on the town of Pokrovsk, in Ukraine’s east, throughout the past week.
The town is considered to be a gateway to the most heavily fortified areas left in Ukraine’s hands in the region of Donetsk.
Last week, Ukrainian commanders reported that large numbers of Russian forces were amassing there for a concerted push to take the town, which has held out for a year.
“The enemy is trying to advance around the clock,” Maksym Bakulin, a spokesman for the Ukrainian National Guard units fighting in Pokrovsk, told Army TV on Tuesday.
Russian forces were going back to using heavy armour and vehicles after a period of infantry attacks, he said.
“Previously, they often sent [troops] on foot, now in most cases they bring them closer, land them and try to fight under the cover of artillery and multiple launch rocket systems,” added Bakulin.
He said Russian forces incurred heavy vehicle losses in the process.
On Wednesday, Ukraine also claimed the Russian military lost 1,670 men in 24 hours, updating its estimated toll of Russia’s wartime losses to 834,670 soldiers.

‘They don’t have an unlimited number of personnel’
The commander of a UAV platoon attached to the 68th Jaeger Brigade told a telethon Russian forces were sometimes sending up to 30 UAVs to attack a single position.
On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had dropped 1,250 glide bombs over the preceding week – about twice the usual number – in an indication of how the battlefield had heated up.
Russia tends to use glide bombs on Ukrainian front lines. In the battles for Severodonetsk in 2022 and Bakhmut in 2023, Russia prevailed in urban warfare through human assault waves that incurred staggering losses.
In Pokrovsk, that is no longer the case, said Viktor Tregubov, a spokesman for the Khortytsia Group of forces fighting there.
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SOURCE: www.aljazeera.com
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