CNN: Russia has massed 110.000 troops near Pokrovskoye

Russia has amassed 110.000 troops near the town of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, which was home to 60.000 people before the war, and has been targeting it for a year as it tries to capture it because it is strategically important to it, CNN reports.

Lieutenant General Oleksandr Syrsky, the supreme commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said on Friday that the area around Pokrovskoye was the "hottest spot" along the 1.200-kilometer front line in the east.

Russian forces have been trying to capture Pokrovsk for almost a year, launching one fierce offensive after another. But despite a clear advantage in terms of numbers of soldiers and weapons, Moscow has failed to take the city.

Pokrovsk is a strategic target for Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that his goal is to capture all of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which his forces partially occupy.

Kiev and its allies say Putin is delaying offers of peace talks so his forces can seize more Ukrainian territory.

Although not a large city, Pokrovsk is on a key supply route and railway line connecting it to other military hubs in the area. Along with Kostyantynivka, Kramatorsk, and Slavyansk, it forms the backbone of Ukraine's defenses in the part of Donetsk Oblast still under Kiev's control.

The last operating coking coal mine in Ukraine was in Pokrovsk, and many of its employees stayed in the area to keep it running. When it was forced to close earlier this year, they too began to leave.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US-based conflict monitoring organization, reported late last year that Ukrainian defensive operations in Pokrovsk had forced Russia to abandon its original plan to take Pokrovsk in a frontal assault.

ISW said this is because Ukrainian troops have begun using drones as an integral part of their defense strategy, successfully integrating drone operators with their ground forces.

At the same time, Russia was unable to significantly increase the number of troops in the area, as it was trying to contain a sudden incursion by Ukrainian troops into its territory in the southern Kursk region.

Syrsky told reporters last Sunday that at one point, the Ukrainian forces' Kursk operation in 2024 attracted nearly 63.000 Russian troops and about 7.000 North Koreans.

"This allowed us to weaken the enemy's pressure on the main fronts and regroup our troops. And the enemy's capture of Pokrovsk, announced back in September 2024, has not yet happened, partly thanks to our Kursk operation," he said.

Instead of continuing to attack the city directly, Russian troops then began to encircle it from the south and northeast.

ISW said in its latest assessment on Friday that Russian forces were continuing attacks by one to two soldiers, sometimes on motorcycles, in all-terrain vehicles and "buggies".

In a statement released on Friday, Syrsky said Russia continues to try to push its way to the administrative border of Donetsk Oblast.

"They want to do this not only to achieve some operational results, but primarily for demonstrative purposes, to achieve a psychological effect: to place the notorious 'boot of the Russian soldier' ​​there, plant a flag and trumpet another false victory," he said, CNN concluded.