Russian President Vladimir Putin has deployed 100,000 troops to the frontlines in eastern Ukraine, raising concerns of a renewed large-scale assault.
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Moscow has moved the forces to the outskirts of Pokrovsk, a key transport hub in the Donetsk region that Russian forces have been attempting to seize for the past 18 months.
Western officials fear the build-up may signal an end-of-year push to capture the remaining Ukrainian strongholds in the area, fulfilling Putin’s stated ambition of taking the entire Donbas region. The matter was a focal point at last week’s European security council meeting, where leaders discussed security guarantees for Ukraine once the war ends.
Russian state media has claimed that Pokrovsk will soon fall, with troops making incremental gains of several hundred yards last month. The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported that while Russia’s summer offensive has failed to achieve significant breakthroughs ahead of the autumn muddy season, Pokrovsk could still be taken within the year.
If the city is captured, only Kramatorsk and Sloviansk would remain as major Ukrainian defensive positions in Donetsk, around 70 per cent of which is already under Russian control. Putin has previously set October as a target for the region’s full capture.
George Barros, head of the ISW’s Russia team, described the battle for Pokrovsk as emblematic of Moscow’s broader struggles to secure meaningful territorial gains in the fourth year of the war. “It took Russia about 18 months to make its way to the city, but Pokrovsk has already outlived its usefulness,” he said.
Since the start of the summer offensive, Russia has seized approximately 785 square miles of territory, around 0.3 per cent of Ukraine’s total land area, according to Bloomberg. Ukrainian forces repelled another Russian assault on Pokrovsk on Thursday, the ISW reported.
The fighting comes as President Zelenskyy held talks with European leaders and US President Donald Trump to explore diplomatic options for ending the conflict. “We discussed different options, and the most important is pressure, using strong measures, particularly economic ones, to force an end to the war,” Zelenskyy said. “The key to peace is depriving Russia’s war machine of money and resources.”
