Russia claims to have complete control of Pokrovsk, but Ukrainian forces still claim control over the northern part of the strategic city in eastern Ukraine.
The Ukrainian military has reported an unusually large-scale mechanized attack by Russia inside the strategic eastern city of Pokrovsk, with Russia reportedly amassing around 156,000 troops to seize the besieged and destroyed former logistics hub.
“Russian forces used armored vehicles, cars and motorcycles. The convoy attempted to break through from the south to the north of the city,” Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Reaction Corps said in a statement on Wednesday, referring to the attack earlier in the day.
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Officials with the 7th Rapid Response Command told Reuters that Russia deployed about 30 vehicles in convoy, making it the largest attack of its kind on the city to date. The official added that until now Russia had only deployed one or two vehicles to support the advance of its troops.
Russia claims full control of Pokrovsk, but Kiev insists Russian forces hold the northern part of the city, where heavy urban fighting remains.
Russian troops have been advancing into the city in small infantry groups for months in an effort to seize the former logistics hub as a key part of Operation Moscow to seize the entire industrial Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
Video clips shared by the 7th Rapid Response Command showed large vehicles in snow and mud, as well as drone strikes on Russian troops, explosions and burning debris.
The force said on Facebook that Russian troops were trying to take advantage of the bad weather but were pushed back.
The capture of Pokrovsk is Russia’s biggest prize in Ukraine in nearly two years, but the weakening of Pokrovsk’s defenses amid Moscow’s onslaught adds to the pressure on Kiev to try to improve terms with a proposed U.S.-backed peace deal widely seen as favoring Russia.
Ukraine’s top military commander, Oleksandr Silsky, told reporters earlier this week that the situation around Pokrovsk remained difficult as Russia massed around 156,000 troops around the besieged city.
Shirsky said Russian troops were conducting a military buildup in the area under cover of rain and fog.
George Barros, Russia team leader at the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank, said the Russian government was “hyping” the significance of the fall of Pokrovsk “to portray Russia’s entry into the battlefield as inevitable”.
“That sense of inevitability is also reflected in some members of President Donald Trump’s negotiating team who are trying to finalize a peace proposal for the Ukraine war,” Barros said in an opinion piece shared online.
However, Russia has paid a heavy price in pushing for the capture of the city of Pokrovsk, losing “over 1,000 armored vehicles and over 500 tanks” in the Pokrovsk region alone since launching offensive operations to capture nearby Avdiivka in October 2023, which fell to Russian forces in early 2024 in one of the bloodiest battles of the war to date.
New: The Kremlin is significantly increasing its cognitive warfare efforts to make it appear as if Russia’s military and economy can inevitably win the war of attrition against Ukraine. ⬇️
The Kremlin’s cognitive warfare efforts aim to achieve some of Putin’s original war objectives… pic.twitter.com/zXxCKrI06x
— Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) December 10, 2025
On Wednesday, President Trump said he had exchanged “pretty strong words” with the leaders of France, Britain and Germany on the Ukraine issue, telling them that plans to hold new talks this weekend on the U.S. peace plan risked becoming a “waste of time.”
Asked about his telephone conversations with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, President Trump told reporters, “We talked about Ukraine in pretty strong terms.”
“They want us to go to a meeting in Europe over the weekend. We’ll make a decision depending on what they report. We don’t want to waste any time,” Trump said.
The United States’ initial peace plan to surrender land not occupied by Russia to Ukraine was seen by Kiev and its European allies as aligning too closely with many of Russia’s demands for an end to the war, and has since been revised.
President Trump has urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to agree to the US plan, but Ukrainian officials told AFP on Wednesday that Kiev had sent the latest draft of the plan back to Washington.
