Andrew Osborn and Felix Hoske
artilleryman of the 152nd Separate Jaeger Brigade fires a howitzer towards Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near the frontline town of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region, Ukraine October 15, 2025. REUTERS/Anatolii Stepanov
©Thomson Reuters
MOSCOW/KYIV (Reuters) -Russian forces are advancing inside the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, destroying trapped Ukrainian military formations and repelling Ukrainian efforts to break out of encirclement, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Monday.
Ukraine's top military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi, who has estimated that Russia has over 100,000 troops fighting in the area, says his forces are pushing hard to try to dislodge Russian forces and are broadly holding their ground.
Following are key facts about Pokrovsk, which Russians call by its Soviet-era name of Krasnoarmeysk, and the long battle for its control which began in earnest in mid-2024.
WHAT IS POKROVSK?
Pokrovsk is a road and rail hub in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region with a pre-war population of some 60,000 people. Most people have now fled, all children have been evacuated and few civilians remain amid its pulverised apartment buildings and cratered roads.
Ukraine's only mine producing coking coal - used in its once vast steel industry - is around six miles (10 km) west of Pokrovsk. Ukrainian steelmaker Metinvest said in January it had suspended mining operations there.
The city lies on a key road which has been used by the Ukrainian military to supply other embattled outposts.
A technical university in Pokrovsk, the region's largest and oldest, now stands abandoned, damaged by shelling.
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