This week, the situation has deteriorated around Pokrovsk, in Donetsk region, and Kupyansk, in Kharkiv region. Russia continued to pummel Ukrainian cities and towns deep in the rear with missiles and drones.
Russia has intensified its offensive in eastern Ukraine. The situation markedly worsened around Pokrovsk in the past weeks, the Financial Times said Monday. Russian forces have advanced in the city and have made gains near Chervonyi Lyman in the Pokrovsk direction, Ukrainian open-source mapping project DeepState said on Wednesday. Russia has also disrupted Ukrainian supply lines toward Myrnohrad and the wider agglomeration, it added.
At a meeting with Russian commanders on Sunday, Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Russian Chief of the General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov made exaggerated claims of Russia’s battlefield victories, the Institute for the Study of War said. Ukraine’s military on Wednesday disproved Putin’s claims of Ukrainian troops being surrounded in Kupyansk.
Russia carried out an attack on Ukraine’s gas infrastructure overnight on Tuesday, a seventh one in October, damaging gas production facilities in Poltava region. Russia launched 705 drones and 52 missiles against Ukraine overnight on Thursday, targeting critical infrastructure. The attack killed three people across the country, including a seven-year-old girl in the city of Ladyzhyn.
Ukraine continues its deep-strike campaign. Dozens of drones attacked Moscow in the early hours of Monday, causing the Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports to briefly close. Reports of explosions in the Moscow region were shared across social media. Ukrainian drones attacked Russia’s petrochemical plant in the Stavropol region and oil refineries in the Ulyanovsk and Mari El regions overnight on Wednesday. Thirteen airports briefly suspended operations following the attacks.
The United States and China will “work together” on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters after a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday.
Russian airstrike on Slovyansk thermal power plant kills two energy workers.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said in his nightly video address on Thursday that a Russian bomb attack on a thermal power plant in Slovyansk in Donetsk region killed two people and injured a number of others.
“This is outright terror. Normal people don’t wage war like this, and the world must respond appropriately to such Russian warfare. It is very important that we have specific agreements with Norway precisely in the field of energy – support for our gas purchases. We also have agreements with Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, and we are working with them on equipment for electricity generation. We are counting on the support of the European Commission as well,” he said on X.
Ukraine’s Energy Ministry elaborated later that day that a Russian airstrike on the Slovyansk thermal power plant with a glide bomb late Thursday killed two energy workers and injured five others.
