Russian forces bypass key stronghold in bid to cut off its supplies, Ukrainian officer says

kyiv, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces are bypassing a key bastion in eastern Ukraine that they fought for months to capture and are instead focusing on cutting supply lines to it , a Ukrainian official said on Monday.

Russian troops are bypassing the vital logistics center of Pokrovsk, where a steadfast Ukrainian defense has kept them at bay, and targeting a highway leading from there to the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, Major Viktor Trehubov said , a local Ukrainian. army spokesperson told the Associated Press.

This route is crucial for supplying Ukrainian forces throughout the region. Cutting road traffic would also seriously weaken Pokrovsk.

“So far they have not achieved their goal and (Ukrainian forces) are working to ensure that they will not achieve this in the future, just as they have not succeeded in other “other attempts to bypass the city,” Trehubov said in a WhatsApp message. message.

Ukraine’s military is under high strain along parts of a roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, particularly in the eastern Donetsk region, where Pokrovsk is located.

After almost three years of war, Ukrainian units are exhausted and outnumbered by Russian forces. Although its progress on the battlefield has been slow and costly, the dynamics of the war are in Russia’s favor and its assault has gradually engulfed towns and villages, notably in Donetsk. The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday that its forces had captured the village of Pishchane.

In his daily video address to the nation Sunday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the fighting around Pokrovsk was “the most intense” in recent days.

In separate comments to the local press, Trehubov, the army spokesman, speculated that heavy Russian losses in troops and armor during the Donetsk operation had prompted it to change its strategy .

“Now they are acting more cautiously,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasing his advantage ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump’s arrival at the White House next week. Trump says he wants to end the war quickly, although he has not disclosed details of his plans.

In 2022, Moscow illegally annexed the neighboring Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which constitute the economically important industrial zone of Donbass, as well as the southeastern provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. But Russian forces do not fully control any of them.

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