Kiev sends reinforcements to the Donetsk bastion under siege by the Russian army for months: “The enemy wants to block our land logistics corridors”

Kiev rushed to consolidate its positions in the strategic eastern city of Pokrovsk as separate groups of Russian troops infiltrated the besieged city, Kiev's military said on Monday, according to Reuters.

Amid the failure of US President Donald Trump's efforts to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine, Russian forces have resumed attempts to capture this important Ukrainian military logistics hub, officials in Kiev say.

The 7th Rapid Reaction Unit of the Ukrainian Airborne Forces reported that positions in the city had been strengthened in recent days amid continued urban fighting.

The Russian military is trying to block the logistics corridors

“The occupiers, who have entered the city, are not trying to conquer it, but intend to advance further north,” Unit 7 said in a Facebook post. “Thus, the enemy wants to disperse our defensive forces and block land logistics corridors,” the brigade members say.

On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that Russia had concentrated its main attack force on Pokrovsk.

“There is intense fighting in and around the city… Logistics are difficult. But we must continue to destroy the occupiers,” he said.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Monday that its assault groups were trying to advance near the city's train station.

Key city in the defense of Donetsk

Russia has been trying for months to capture the city of Pokrovsk, a key area of ​​Kiev's defensive lines, seeing it as a crucial point in its advance towards the full capture of the Donetsk region.

Citing the information provided by the Ukrainian secret services, Zelensky told the American publication Axios that Russian President Vladimir Putin would have privately stated that Moscow would capture the entire Donbas, which includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, by October 15. Reuters notes that it could not independently verify this claim.

Over the past seven days, the open-source mapping platform Deep State, close to the Ukrainian military, has expanded the gray area southwest of Pokrovsk and now shows that about a fifth of the west and south of the besieged city is in the middle of fighting.

Russian troops control about 75% of the Donetsk region today. About 6,600 square kilometers (2,548 sq mi) are still under the control of Kiev forces.

The Russian army has reconfirmed the occupation of three villages in the south-east of Ukraine

The Russian army claimed on Monday the capture of three villages in southeastern Ukraine, where its troops continue to gain ground in some sectors, despite heavy losses, in front of Ukrainian forces that lack ammunition and soldiers, AFP and Agerpres reported earlier in the day.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said on Telegram that its troops captured the towns of Novomikolaivka and Prilivne in the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporozhye, as well as the village of Egorovka in the Dnipropetrovsk region (central-east).

While the peace negotiations between Kiev and Moscow are at a standstill, the Russian army – much better equipped and more numerous – continues its attacks on the front, but without making any major progress.

In recent months, Russian troops have been using a tactic of conducting large-scale attacks with very small groups of soldiers infiltrating Ukrainian defenses, while avoiding the formation of large assault groups, particularly vulnerable to drone attacks.

The Kremlin's priority remains the full capture of the eastern Donetsk region.

In recent days, the pressure has intensified strongly on the Pokrovsk-Mirnograd area, the Ukrainian stronghold in the Donetsk region that Moscow has been trying to capture for several months.

On Sunday, the Ukrainian General Staff said that the Russian army had managed to enter Pokrovsk with about 200 soldiers, who had infiltrated in “small groups of infantry”.