Defence of Donbas town a priority, Zelensky says, as special forces deployed

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the defence of Pokrovsk is a “priority”, as elite special force were deployed to the embattled town on the eastern front line.

Ukrainian army sources told the BBC that special forces from military intelligence and assault groups were being used as regular infantry to protect supply lines to troops holding the town in the Donbas region.

There have been growing reports of Russian advances around the strategic town to the west of Donetsk. Ukraine has denied claims their forces were surrounded.

Moscow wants Kyiv to cede the entire Donbas region as part of a peace deal, including the parts it currently does not control.

Russia currently controls around a fifth of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean peninsula it annexed in 2014.

The deployment of special forces suggests officials in Kyiv are determined to try to hold onto the town, which Russia has been trying to seize for more than a year.

Local media reports that the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, was in the region to personally oversee the operation.

Pokrovsk is a key transport and supply hub whose capture could unlock Russian efforts to seize the rest of the region.

But Kyiv also believes its capture would help Russia in its efforts to persuade the US that its military campaign was succeeding – and, therefore, that the West should acquiesce to its demands.

Washington has grown increasingly frustrated with the Kremlin’s failure to move forward with peace negotiations – culminating in US President Donald Trump placing sanctions on its two largest oil producers and axing plans for a summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Zelensky has indicated he was open to Trump’s proposal for a ceasefire that would freeze the war along the current front lines. Russia has publicly insisted Ukrainian troops leave the remainder of the Donbas.

In his nightly address, the Ukrainian president said: “Pokrovsk is our priority. We continue to destroy the occupier, and that is what matters most… They must be halted where they have reached – and destroyed there.”

Images shared with news agencies appear show a Ukrainian Black Hawk helicopter deploying about 10 troops near Pokrovsk, although the location and date could not be verified.

Russia’s defence ministry has claimed it thwarted the deployment of Ukrainian military intelligence special forces north-west of the town, saying all 11 troops who landed by helicopter had been killed.

DeepState, a Ukrainian open-source monitoring group, estimates about half of Pokrovsk is a so-called “grey zone” where neither side is in full control.

A military source in Donetsk told the BBC that Ukrainian forces were not surrounded but their supply lines were under fire from Russian troops.

“The situation in the city has changed so much that [Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, General] Syrsky is now sending elite units into the city to stabilise it,” he said.

These included special forces and assault units in Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence agency (GUR), he said.

“Fighting is now taking place for the railway station and the industrial zone in the west. The battles for the industrial zone have almost reduced logistics from roughly vehicle-based to foot-based.

“The Ukrainian Armed Forces are not in a physical encirclement, but in an operational one – this means that all logistics are under fire control.”

The US-based Institute for the Study of War said Ukrainian forces had “marginally advanced” during recent counter-attacks north of Pokrovsk, but said the town was “mainly a contested ‘grey zone'”.