Ukraine’s top general said on Thursday that his troops were facing “extremely fierce” fighting as Russian forces close in on the strategic eastern city of Pokrovsk, and that “unconventional decisions” would have to be made to bolster Ukrainian defenses.
Although the commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, did not specify what kind of measures might be taken, his alarming statement underscored the deteriorating situation around Pokrovsk, a key rail and road hub for Ukraine’s army.
In an effort to flank Pokrovsk, Russian troops have pushed south of the city in recent days and are now less than three miles from its outskirts, according to battlefield maps based on satellite images and publicly available footage of the fighting. They are also steadily advancing through villages and settlements several dozen miles to the south, threatening to seize the last two Ukrainian strongholds in the southern part of the Donetsk region.
Moscow is advancing in Donetsk at its fastest pace since 2022, capturing hundreds of square miles each month as it leverages its overwhelming manpower advantage by breaking through Ukrainian positions weakened by troop shortages.
Analysts say the Kremlin is racing to secure as many territorial gains as possible before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office next month and starts to push for peace talks with terms that are likely to be shaped by each side’s status on the battlefield.
Emil Kastehelmi, a military analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group, said that from September to November, Russia had seized more than 600 square miles of Ukrainian territory, roughly twice the size of New York City, almost all of it in the Donetsk region.
“The rate of advance accelerated every month, despite the Russians suffering heavy losses,” he wrote on social media this month. He added that Russia could occupy another 200 to 300 square miles of Ukrainian land by the end of the year.
In recent days, Russia’s army has also intensified its assaults on Ukrainian forces occupying a sliver of land in the western Russian region of Kursk. The Ukrainian authorities have suggested that control over Russian territory could be used as a bargaining chip during any peace negotiations, something that the Kremlin would like to avoid.
It remains unclear what General Syrsky’s “unconventional decisions” will be. But Serhii Kuzan, the chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center, a nongovernmental research group, said the Ukrainian commander had a record of launching surprise offensives, such as in the Kharkiv region in 2022 and in the Kursk region this summer, with varying degrees of success.
“Speaking of unconventional decisions, including in the Pokrovsk direction, we recall these two examples and understand that this is Syrsky’s approach,” Mr. Kuzan said.
In Ukraine, Moscow ratcheted up pressure on Kyiv and its allies last month by launching an intermediate-range ballistic missile that is capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Although that missile, an Oreshnik, was not armed with a nuclear payload, the Kremlin said its decision to launch it at Ukraine was a direct response to Ukraine’s use of U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, against targets in Russia.
Moscow warned that it would fire more Oreshnik missiles if ATACMS strikes on its territory persisted.
On Wednesday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said that its forces had thwarted a Ukrainian attack against a Russian air base involving six ATACMS missiles. The claim could not been independently verified.
The same day, Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon spokeswoman, said it was possible that Russia could fire another Oreshnik missile “in the coming days.” But she said such missiles were “not going to be a game changer on the battlefield,” because Russia’s stock of them was limited and because they carry a smaller nonnuclear warhead than other missiles Moscow has deployed against Ukraine.
U.S. officials view the Oreshnik’s use primarily as an attempt to intimidate Ukraine and its allies.
On the battlefield, Russia’s recent advances near Pokrovsk align with a strategy long anticipated by military analysts: bypassing the city’s main defensive lines — trenches, bunkers and anti-tank ditches — and instead flanking it from the south through more open terrain.
Pokrovsk, which had a prewar population of about 60,000, sits on a key road linking several cities that form a defensive arc protecting the part of Donetsk that Ukraine still holds. It is also the last major city in the central part of the Donetsk region under Ukrainian control.
Combined with the possible fall of Kurakhove and Velyka Novosilka, two Ukrainian strongholds under assault further south, the capture of Pokrovsk could pave the way for a complete Russian takeover of the southern half of the Donetsk region. It could also open a path for new attacks on the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region, analysts say.
Nazar Voloshyn, Ukraine’s military spokesman for the eastern front, said on Ukrainian television on Wednesday that three army positions near Pokrovsk had been lost to Russian forces. He added that Moscow’s troops had entered Shevchenko, the final village on the southern approach to Pokrovsk.
A Ukrainian military analyst who goes by the pseudonym Tatarigami also said that Russian forces were trying to control the supply routes to Pokrovsk by deploying attack drones over a key road. “This is a serious threat to the resupply process of Pokrovsk, potentially threatening the sustainability of Ukrainian defenses in the area,” he said.
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