Ukrainian officials said Russian forces were now only 7km from the eastern city of Pokrovsk and urged its remaining residents to evacuate, as the US rejected Kyiv’s complaints over the pace of arms supplies and its appeal for neighbouring Nato states to help it shoot down enemy missiles and drones.
“There were two attacks yesterday alone. That’s six guided aerial bombs… and there were people wounded. This is civilian infrastructure [being hit], as always, critical infrastructure; it’s almost destroyed. It is almost 80 per cent damaged or destroyed. The enemy is leaving us without electricity, water and gas. They are ‘preparing’ us for winter,” Serhiy Dobriak, the head of the Pokrovsk administration, said on Friday.
He warned that Russian troops were now just 7km from the small city, which has been a logistics hub for Ukrainian forces defending the Donetsk region. If it falls, the defence of the nearby, larger cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk will be more difficult.
[ New Nato chief Mark Rutte stresses support for Ukraine on Kyiv tripOpens in new window ]
Mr Dobriak said 13,050 people, including 94 children, were still in Pokrovsk, down from 48,000 people six weeks ago: “I emphasise once again the need for evacuation. This is the only way to save your life today. We will get through the winter – and return.”
Ukraine’s military said in its early evening report that 79 clashes had taken place along the front line on Friday, with the most intense being near Kurakhove, a Kyiv-held town about 40km south of Pokrovsk and 30km north of Vuhledar, which Russian forces occupied this week.
Russia said its defence minister, Andrei Belousov, congratulated units involved in the capture of Vuhledar and reported on the operation to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Moscow’s military fired 19 explosive drones at critical infrastructure targets in Ukraine in the early hours of Friday, nine of which were shot down, while seven others were probably sent off-course by electronic jamming, Ukrainian officials said.
[ Zelenskiy says Trump assured him of support for Ukraine in war with RussiaOpens in new window ]
An oil refinery was set on fire in Russia’s Voronezh region as the country’s air defences intercepted 18 drones, and Ukraine continued a campaign to hit fuel facilities, arms depots and airbases hundreds of kilometres inside Russian territory.
Ukraine is using domestically made, long-range drones for the attacks, while continuing to press for US permission to strike deeper inside Russia using western-supplied missiles – something Washington fears could cause “escalation” in the war.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy complained this week that the US was “dragging out” the delivery of long-range missiles to Kyiv, and asked why Nato states on Ukraine’s western border could not help it shoot down Russian rockets and drones, after seeing US forces again help Israel to destroy incoming Iranian missiles.
“What I would say is we have a limited supply of long-range missiles, and only a few nations have that supply… so we’re not dragging it out,” said Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh.
When it came to Israel and Ukraine “we are talking about two very different landscapes and battlefields”, she said, adding that shooting down Russian missiles from the territory of Poland or Romania “would be involving us in a war in a different way”.
Russia said a security officer at the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in eastern Ukraine had been killed, and Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence service published video of Andriy Korotkiy’s car exploding and a warning that “just retribution awaits every war criminal”.
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