In desperate battles for control of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad, in eastern Ukraine, which Moscow views as a gateway to the region’s unfinished areas, Russian and Ukrainian forces are locked in a flurry of fighting.
Vladimir Putin’s 2nd and 51st Combined Arms Armies “advancing along converging axes” and “have completed the encirclement of the enemy,” according to Valery Gerasimov, the Russian chief of staff, on Sunday.
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He claimed that elite airborne and marine units were encircled along with 5,500 Ukrainian troops.
Russian military reporters refuted these claims, with one reporting to 621, 000 Telegram subscribers as saying “There is simply no encirclement” because Gerasimov’s attempted pincer movement was still “several kilometers” apart.
The Ukrainian commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskii, also refuted Gerasimov’s assertion on Thursday.
According to Syrskii, “Russian propaganda’s claims about the alleged “blocking” of the Ukrainian defense forces in Pokrovsk and Kupiansk do not match reality.”
The Russian journalist added that it was “extremely unlikely” that thousands of Ukrainian soldiers would be trapped.
He claimed that today’s urban battles are “conducted by small groups of infantry with the support of many drones” and that they are “a classic meat grinder head-to-head” with battles for each house.
On October 23, isolated Russian groups entered western and central Pokrovsk, but they did not appear to have control any of the city’s areas, preferring to lay out positions and wait for reinforcements.
The situation in Pokrovsk, according to the Ukrainian General Staff, “remains difficult.” Some 200 Russian troops are thought to have spied on the town, but defending units said they were conducting sabotage operations that prevented Russian units from gaining a permanent foothold.
Pokrovsk’s front remained strong as well.
The porousness of the front line was demonstrated by the report from Ukrainian military observer Konstantyn Mashovets, who claimed Kyiv’s troops were able to ambush Russian rear positions in the village of Sukhetsky, northeast of Pokrovsk.
Russian small infantry groups and Ukrainian corresponding groups started to clash frequently and suddenly, even before their deployment or when they were attempting to strengthen and replenish their assault groups directly, according to Mashovets.
The positions of both sides are still ambiguous, according to Kremlin-aligned Russian military news outlet Rybar, citing the abundance of drones in the air, which make any large concentrations of infantry moving very dangerous. The lack of a single front line is prevented, and the control zones’ precise boundaries are also prevented.
Prior to the most recent assault, which started in the middle of October, Mashovets estimated that the Russian 2nd Combined Arms Army, known as the “main impact force,” had received reinforcements from other front-line locations of between 6 000 and 10 500 troops.
Pokrovsk and the surrounding areas receive particular attention, according to the statement. In a speech on Monday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that is where the occupier has concentrated its largest assault forces. “Pokrovsk is their main goal,” they say.
Russian energy hubs are targeted by Ukraine.
Zelenskyy has stated on numerous occasions that his goal is to bring the war to Russian soil. Last week, long-range drones and cruise missiles from Ukraine performed that task.
On October 23, Ukraine set fire to a crude oil distillation unit at the Ryazan oil refinery for the fifth time this year. 139 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
On Saturday, the regional governor of Leningrad declared that “several” Ukrainian drones had been shot down without inflicting any harm or casualties.
According to Crimean occupation Governor Sergey Aksyonov, Ukraine struck a fuel and lubricant container on Wednesday in Simferopol.
Putin boasts of having weapons that “nobody else in the world has.”
Russian officials, who have long supported US President Donald Trump’s efforts to reach a deal directly with Putin, changed after Trump abruptly canceled a summit with him and put sanctions on Russian oil companies Lukoil and Rosneft.
Trump’s deputy head of Russia’s National Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, said that the US was now “completely aligned with mad Europe, and its verbose ‘peacemaker’ is now firmly on the warpath against Russia.”
Putin made the announcement over the weekend that a new nuclear-powered torpedo with the ability to launch radioactive tidal waves targeting coastal regions over cakes and tea with Russian war veterans.
The Poseidon reportedly has a range of 10, 000km (6, 200 miles) and travels at 185km/h (115mph). There is nothing like it in the world, its rivals are unlikely to appear anytime soon, and there are no existing interception methods, according to Putin, as he had previously stated.
Andrey Kartapolov, the head of the Duma Defense Committee, claimed that the Poseidon was “capable of disabling entire states.”
A new nuclear-capable cruise missile, the Burevestnik, which is also nuclear-powered, was successfully tested by Putin three days earlier.
It is a special item that no one else in the world can find, according to Putin.
In November 2024, Russia launched the Oreshnik, a hypersonic, intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of hitting a Ukrainian factory in Dnipro, in a similar political intimidation tactic. By December, Putin had promised to deploy the Oreshnik in Belarus.
In the Sea of Japan, Russia tested the Sarmat, a brand-new intercontinental ballistic missile, which Putin claimed is still in use. None of the tests had independent verification, and it was unclear whether any of the new weapons were capable of being used in combat or whether they could be produced on a scale.
Moscow carried out a routine strategic forces exercise on October 22 by sending long-range Tupolev-22M3 bombers over the Baltic Sea in response to Western aggression.
Trump claimed on Monday that Putin should concentrate on bringing the war to an end.
Source: Aljazeera
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