The Kremlin is focusing its fire on Pokrovsk, a gateway to the Donetsk region, which Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, has long coveted.

Russian and Ukrainian troops fought battles on Tuesday in the ruins of Pokrovsk, a transport and logistics hub in eastern Ukraine that Moscow has been trying to capture for over a year.

T wenty-one months after it began, Vladimir Putin’s assault on the small Donbas city of Pokrovsk (pre-war population 60,000) is nearing its end. A bloody surge in late October made the situation in the city and in Myrhnohrad,

Russia has been threatening Pokrovsk for more than a year. Instead of the full frontal assaults it used in earlier battles like the bloody campaign for the similarly sized city of Bakhmut, Russia's military is using a pincer movement to gradually encircle Pokrovsk and threaten Ukrainian supply lines.

Moscow’s forces infiltrated Pokrovsk after months of attacks on the city, a strategic part of Ukraine’s eastern defenses.

Oleksandr Syrskyi says special forces have been deployed but denies Russian reports Ukrainian troops are surrounded in Pokrovsk.

Smoke curled into the night sky as a sudden flash signaled the destruction of one of Russia's most advanced air defense systems. On October 26, 2025, Ukraine's "Chornyi Lis" (Black Forest) brigade struck and obliterated a Buk-M3 launcher—an event captured on video and quickly shared by Ukrainian forces.