Russia sends 170,000 troops to Donetsk, Zelenskyy says
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Russian forces are making progress in Ukraine, but their gains have been slow and have cost many soldiers and weapons.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that Russia has sent about 170,000 troops to the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. Russia is trying to capture the city of Pokrovsk in a major push.
“The situation in Pokrovsk is difficult,” Zelenskyy said. He denied Russia’s claim that the city is completely surrounded after more than a year of fighting. Some Russian forces have entered the city, but Ukrainian soldiers are gradually pushing them out.
“There are Russians in Pokrovsk,” Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv. “They are being destroyed slowly because we need to protect our own troops.”
In past battles, Ukraine has sometimes withdrawn from certain areas to avoid heavy losses, as its forces are much smaller than Russia’s.
Putin has said that Russian troops are advancing, even though their progress has been slow and costly. He is trying to convince the United States, which wants a peace deal, that Ukraine cannot resist Russia’s military power. He has also highlighted Russia’s growing nuclear capability and insists on continuing the war to achieve Russia’s goals.
Ukraine attacks Russian oil facilities
Ukraine has been striking targets inside Russia to slow down its military and affect Russian civilians.
Since the start of the year, Ukraine has carried out more than 160 long-range strikes on Russian oil extraction and refining sites, according to Vasyl Maliuk, head of Ukraine’s Security Service.
In September and October alone, Ukraine carried out 20 strikes. Maliuk said the attacks caused a 20% drop in oil products in Russia and temporarily stopped 37% of the country’s oil refining. These claims have not been independently confirmed.
“Clearly, we are not stopping,” Maliuk said. “We are using new equipment, new combat units, and new ways to communicate.”
He said that this year, Ukraine has destroyed almost half of Russia’s advanced Pantsir air defense systems, which were stopping Ukrainian long-range drones.
He also mentioned that last year, Ukrainian forces destroyed one of Russia’s new hypersonic missiles that can fly 10 times the speed of sound. They hit it on the ground at a Russian military base.
The missile, called Oreshnik, was claimed by Putin at the end of last year to be immune to air defenses and a “game-changing” weapon. It was destroyed at the Kapustin Yar firing range near the Caspian Sea in southwestern Russia, about 500 km from Ukraine, according to Maliuk.
Putin said a year ago that the missile was used to attack the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, a few months after Maliuk said Ukraine had already destroyed one.
UN reports rise in civilian casualties in Ukraine
Meanwhile, Russian drones hit apartment buildings in the northeastern city of Sumy overnight, injuring 11 people, including four children. They also struck energy facilities in southern Odesa, authorities said on Friday.
This year, the war has been more deadly for civilians than in 2024, with a 30% increase in casualties so far, said the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine, Matthias Schmale.
Russia’s nearly daily attacks on Ukraine’s energy production and distribution are particularly worrying because this winter is expected to be colder than last year, Schmale said in Geneva.
Ukrainian cities have centralized systems for water, sewage, and heating. The UN fears that cutting these services for people in high-rise buildings near the front line “could become a major crisis,” according to Schmale.
“Destroying energy production and distribution as winter begins clearly affects civilians and is a form of terror,” he said.
The UN’s humanitarian operation also lacks enough funds to respond to urgent needs. Its funding for Ukraine has dropped from over $4 billion (€3.4 billion) in 2022, the year Russia invaded, to $1.1 billion (€950 million) this year, Schmale added.
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