Russian and Ukrainian forces are interlocked in desperate battles for control of Ukraine’s eastern towns of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad, which Moscow considers a gateway to the remaining unoccupied areas of the Donetsk region.
On Sunday, Valery Gerasimov, Russian chief of staff, told President Vladimir Putin his 2nd and 51st Combined Arms Armies were “advancing along converging axes” and “have completed the encirclement of the enemy” in Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad.
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He claimed some 5,500 Ukrainian troops were surrounded, including elite airborne and marine units.
Russian military reporters contradicted these claims, with one named “Military Informant” telling 621,000 Telegram subscribers, “There is simply no encirclement” as the two claws of Gerasimov’s attempted pincer movement were still “several kilometres” apart.
On Thursday, Oleksandr Syrskii, the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, also denied Gerasimov’s claim.
“The statements of Russian propaganda about the alleged ‘blocking’ of the defence forces of Ukraine in Pokrovsk, as well as in Kupiansk, do not correspond to reality,” Syrskii said.
The Russian reporter also thought it “extremely unlikely” that thousands of Ukrainian troops were trapped.
“If earlier urban battles were a classic meat grinder ‘head-to-head’ with battles for each house,” he said, now they are “conducted by small groups of infantry with the support of many drones”.
Geolocated footage showed that isolated Russian groups had entered western and central Pokrovsk on October 23, but they did not appear to control areas within the city, rather to stake out positions and await reinforcements.
Ukraine’s General Staff said the situation around Pokrovsk “remains difficult”, and estimated that some 200 Russian troops had infiltrated the town, but said defending units were conducting sabotage operations that prevented Russian units from gaining a permanent foothold.
The front around Pokrovsk also remained dynamic.
Ukrainian military observer Konstantyn Mashovets reported that Kyiv’s troops were able to ambush Russian rear positions in the village of Sukhetsky, northeast of Pokrovsk, demonstrating the porousness of the front line.
“[Russian] small infantry groups in some places began to collide with Ukrainian corresponding groups quite often and suddenly, even before their deployment or when moving to strengthen and replenish their assault groups directly,” said Mashovets.
“Due to the abundance of drones in the air, which make the movement of any large concentrations of infantry extremely dangerous, the positions of both sides remain mixed,” said Kremlin-aligned Russian military news outlet Rybar. “This leads to the absence of a single front line and prevents the determination of the exact boundaries of the control zones.”
Mashovets estimated that the Russian 2nd Combined Arms Army, which he described as the “main impact force”, had received reinforcements of between 6,000 and 10,500 troops from other areas of the front ahead of the latest assault, which began in mid-October.
“Special attention is focused on Pokrovsk and the neighbouring areas. That is where the occupier has concentrated its largest assault forces,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a Monday evening address. “It is Pokrovsk that is their main objective.”
Ukraine strikes Russian energy hubs
Zelenskyy has often said his objective is to return the war to Russian soil. Ukraine’s long-range drones and cruise missiles were performing that task during the past week.
Ukraine struck the Ryazan oil refinery for the fifth time this year on October 23, setting ablaze a crude oil distillation unit. Russia’s Defence Ministry said 139 Ukrainian drones had been shot down overnight.
Leningrad’s regional governor said “several” Ukrainian drones had been shot down without causing damage or casualties on Saturday.
Ukraine struck a fuel and lubricants container in Simferopol on Wednesday, Crimean occupation Governor Sergey Aksyonov said.
Putin boasts of weapons ‘nobody else in the world has’
Russian officials who have been supportive of US President Donald Trump’s efforts to negotiate a peace directly with Putin changed their tone after Trump cancelled a summit with Putin and imposed sanctions on Russian oil majors Lukoil and Rosneft last week.
“The US is our adversary, and its verbose ‘peacemaker’ is now firmly on the warpath against Russia,” said Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia’s National Security Council, saying Trump was now “completely aligned with mad Europe”.
Over cakes and tea with Russian war veterans on Monday, Putin announced the successful test launch of a new nuclear-powered torpedo with the ability to create radioactive tidal waves targeting coastal regions.
The Poseidon reportedly has a range of 10,000km (6,200 miles) and travels at 185km/h (115mph). As with previous unveilings of Russian weapons, Putin said, “There’s nothing like it in the world, its rivals are unlikely to appear anytime soon, and there are no existing interception methods”.
Duma Defence Committee Chairman Andrey Kartapolov said the Poseidon was“capable of disabling entire states”.
Three days earlier, Putin had announced the successful test of a new nuclear-capable cruise missile, the Burevestnik, which is also nuclear-powered.
“It is a unique ware which nobody else in the world has,” Putin said.
Russia followed a similar political intimidation tactic in November 2024, when it launched the Oreshnik, a hypersonic, intermediate-range ballistic, nuclear-capable missile, to hit a Ukrainian factory in Dnipro. On Tuesday, Putin said he would deploy the Oreshnik in Belarus by December.
Russia also tested the Sarmat, a new intercontinental ballistic missile that Putin said is not yet operational, in the Sea of Japan. None of the tests were independently verified, and it was unclear whether any of the new weapons were battle-ready or whether they could be produced at scale.
On October 22, Moscow conducted a routine strategic forces exercise, sending Tupolev-22M3 long-range bombers over the Baltic Sea, framing it as a reaction to Western aggression.
Trump said on Monday that Putin should instead focus on ending the war.
“I don’t think it’s an appropriate thing for Putin to be saying,” said the US president. “You ought to get the war ended; the war that should have taken one week is now in … its fourth year, that’s what you ought to do instead of testing missiles.”