Ukrainian forces reported that Russian troops are launching their fiercest attacks yet on the western outskirts of Pokrovsk while intensifying pressure on nearby Myrnohrad, reports Francis Farrell of The Kyiv Independent. Russian forces are advancing toward the village of Hryshyne, northwest of Pokrovsk, after failing to capture the city’s northwestern neighborhoods. Ukraine is resisting with artillery and drone strikes to block likely Russian routes. In Myrnohrad, Russian troops are pressuring southeastern areas, with the city nearly encircled and Ukrainian rotations frequently encountering direct firefights. Farrell writes:

Russian troops are launching their fiercest attacks on the western outskirts of Pokrovsk while also ramping up pressure on Myrnohrad, its sister city nearby. […]

The 7th Air Assault Corps’s report comes as Ukraine’s grip on Pokrovsk, a city in eastern Donetsk Oblast that has seen the fiercest fighting for over a year, weakens, with Russian troops threatening the last remaining logistical routes into it. […]

Myrnohrad, a city located about five kilometers (3 miles) northeast of Pokrovsk, Russian troops are intensifying pressure on the Myrnohrad’s southeastern areas, trying to infiltrate the upper part of the town by moving upward, according to the 7th Corps.

According to assessments by most open-source mapping groups, including the highly trusted DeepState Map, Myrnohrad has for weeks been in a state of near encirclement, with reports that almost all Ukrainian attempts to conduct rotation in and out of the city end up in direct firefights with Russian troops.

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