Ukraine’s military said it was still under pressure in the country’s east. “The situation in the Pokrovsk and Kurachove areas remains tense,” the General Staff in Kiev said in its evening situation report. Of the 125 Russian attacks along the front, more than 50 were in this sector. “The enemy is making the main effort towards Pokrovsk,” the Ukrainian military chief said.
Although the Ukrainians themselves are credited by independent observers with slowing down the Russian advance on the strategically important Pokrovsk, the situation in front of Kurakhove, further south, remains dangerous for the defenders. As a result of Russian advances near the mining town of Hirnyk, several units there are in danger of being surrounded.
There are similar signs passing through defensive positions to the south near the town of Wuhledar, which Russia has failed to capture through frontal assaults in the past.