MOSCOW: Russia said its forces had pushed deeper into the eastern Ukrainian cities of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk on Tuesday, with one video showing Russian soldiers rolling into Pokrovsk on motorbikes and even on the roofs of battered cars and vans.
Moscow says taking Pokrovsk, dubbed “the gateway to Donetsk” by Russian media, would give it a platform to drive north toward the two biggest remaining Ukrainian-controlled cities in the Donetsk region — Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
Russia has been threatening Pokrovsk for more than a year, using a pincer movement to attempt to encircle it and threaten supply lines, rather than the deadly frontal assaults it employed to capture the city of Bakhmut in 2023.
Russian war bloggers published a video on Tuesday showing what they said were Russian forces entering Pokrovsk along a road enveloped in fog, in what some Telegram users said looked like scenes from the 1979 action film “Mad Max,” which unfolds in a post-apocalyptic landscape.
The video showed Russian forces on motorcycles and in an odd assortment of cars and other vehicles. Many vehicles, missing doors and windows, were shown driving along a road strewn with debris as soldiers looked on. Some Russian soldiers sat on the roof of a battered vehicle. A drone was seen beside the road.
Reuters was able to confirm the location of the video as Pokrovsk from the road layout, signs, utility tower, and trees seen in the video, which matched file and satellite imagery of the area. Reuters was not able to independently verify the date of the footage.
In a Telegram post, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was visiting Ukrainian-held parts of southern Kherson region, described the situation in Pokrovsk as “difficult, particularly as weather conditions favor attacks. But we are continuing to destroy the occupiers.”
Zelensky also said that Moscow was increasing its assaults in the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia.
Ukraine’s military said about 300 Russian soldiers were now inside Pokrovsk and that Moscow had intensified efforts to get more troops in over the past few days, using dense fog for cover from drones. It said Ukrainian forces were battling Russian groups in the city.
In a sign of the intensity of the urban battle, Russia said it had taken 256 buildings. Its forces were advancing to the northwest and east of Pokrovsk and around the railway station.
Moscow and Kyiv have given different accounts of the battle for Pokrovsk: Moscow has for days said the city is encircled while Kyiv has denied Moscow controls the city and said on Monday that it was still able to supply neighboring Myrnohrad.
Open source battlefield maps from both sides show that Russia has executed a pincer movement around the city and was close to closing it, though Kyiv has counter-attacked around the town of Dobropillia.
Ukraine’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, in an interview with the New York Post, said Russia was concentrating some 150,000 troops in a drive to capture Pokrovsk, with mechanized groups and marine brigades part of the push.
Russia said its forces had taken full control of the eastern part of Kupiansk in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. A Russian commander, who gave his call sign as “Hunter,” said his forces had taken control of an oil depot on the city’s eastern edge.
In a video statement issued by Russia’s Defense Ministry, he said his forces had also taken control of a series of train stops along the railway to Kupiansk Vuzlovyi, a settlement which is about 6 km (4 miles) south of the center of Kupiansk itself.
Russia also said its troops had taken control of the Novouspenivske settlement in Zaporizhzhia region. Ukraine withdrew from some villages, including Novouspenivske, due to attacks involving more than 400 artillery strikes per day, RBC-Ukraine news agency cited a military spokesperson as saying.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports from either side due to reporting restrictions and the danger of the war zone.
Russia’s military says it now controls more than 19 percent of Ukraine, or some 116,000 square km (44,800 square miles). Ukrainian maps tracking frontline changes show Russian control at 19.1 percent of Ukraine, up from 18 percent nearly three years ago.