Ukraine said Tuesday it was engaged in ‘difficult’ battles with Russian forces after Moscow had made rapid advances in a narrow but important section of the front line in the country’s east.
The gains came just days before US President Donald Trump was to meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska for talks on the war, the first meeting between a sitting US and Russian leader since 2021.
The Ukrainian army said it was engaged in ‘heavy’ battles with Russian forces attempting to penetrate its defences.
‘The situation is difficult and dynamic,’ it said in a statement.
A map published by Ukrainian battlefield monitor DeepState, which has close ties with Ukraine’s military, showed Russia had advanced around 10 kilometres (six miles) over around two days, deep into a narrow section of the eastern front line.
The corridor – now apparently under Russian control – threatens the town of Dobropillia, a mining hub that civilians are fleeing and that has come under Russian drone attacks.
It also further isolates the destroyed town of Kostiantynivka, one of the last large urban areas in the Donetsk region still held by Ukraine.
The Ukrainian military reported that defenders were holding off advancing troops moving on Dobropol and Pokrov.
‘Our units are waging heavy defensive battles against superior enemy forces. Thus, in the Pokrov direction alone, the invaders have concentrated groups numbering over 110 thousand personnel,’ the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine wrote on Telegram.
‘Some of the groups have already been destroyed, the rest are in the process of being destroyed,’ the statement added.
‘The situation is difficult and dynamic, but the Defense Forces are taking all necessary measures to detect and destroy enemy groups […] Additional forces and means have been allocated to strengthen the stability of the defense. Measures have been planned to block enemy groups in a certain area.’
‘The situation is quite chaotic, as the enemy, having found gaps in the defence, is infiltrating deeper, trying to quickly consolidate and accumulate forces for further advancement,’ DeepState said on its Telegram channel.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based observatory, said Russia was sending small sabotage groups forwards.
It said it was ‘premature’ to call the Russian advances in around Dobropillia ‘an operational-level breakthrough’.
The military’s Operational-Tactical Group Donetsk, which oversees parts of the front in the industrial region, also said Russia was probing Ukrainian lines with small sabotage groups, describing battles as ‘complex, unpleasant and dynamic’.
Trump has described his summit with Putin on Friday as a chance to check the Russian leader’s ideas for ending the war.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky warned ahead of the talks that Moscow was laying the groundwork for further attacks, after Trump said on Monday that both sides would have to swap territory for peace.
European leaders have meanwhile sought to ensure respect for Kyiv’s interests.
‘We see that the Russian army is not preparing to end the war. On the contrary, they are making movements that indicate preparations for new offensive operations,’ Zelensky said in a statement on social media.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022, has made costly but incremental gains across the sprawling front in recent months and claims to have annexed four Ukrainian regions while still fighting to control them.
Ukrainian police meanwhile said that Russian attacks in the past hours had killed three people and wounded 12 others, including a child.
Ukraine’s military said it had sent in reserves near the cities of Pokrovsk and Dobropillia to block advances by small groups of Russian troops.
In a statement, the General Staff said some of the groups attempting to bypass Ukraine’s defensive lines in the area had already been destroyed, and that others were being engaged by Ukrainian forces.
Dobropillia is 94 kilometres (58 miles) northwest of Russian-occupied Donetsk, and around 22 kilometers (14 miles) north of Pokrovsk.
Earlier today, the Kyiv Independent reported that the Russian military is employing infiltration tactics, by sending small groups of soldiers beyond the first line of defense, often incurring significant losses.
‘A number of small Russian groups are constantly putting pressure on Ukrainian positions and attempting to bypass the first line of defense,’ said Victor Tregubov, spokesperson of the Dnipro group of forces.
‘It is important to understand that this does not mean Russian forces have taken control of the territory,’ the spokesperson added.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow.
