Ukrainian officials urge civilians to evacuate eastern city of Pokrovsk as Russian forces close in

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Military authorities in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk urged civilians to speed up their evacuation Friday as the Russian military rapidly approached what was believed to be a ground offensive. One of Moscow’s main goals For months.

“Russian forces are advancing at a rapid pace. With each passing day, there is less and less time to collect personal belongings and leave for safer areas,” officials in Pokrovsk said in a post on Telegram.

Ukrainian forces are trying to turn Kremlin’s military focus Away from the front line in Ukraine by launching A bold foray across the border Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Pokrovsk and other nearby cities in the Donetsk region “face the most severe Russian attacks.”

An aerial scout from Ukraine’s 68th Airborne Brigade, who is helping defend the city, told The Associated Press by phone Friday that he faces the same deadly routine every day: From his position, he flies a drone to spot moving Russian infantrymen. A mortar shell thuds after he relays the coordinates. Then more and more infantrymen come in a seemingly endless wave.

“Since the Kursk operation, I haven’t noticed any changes. The Russians follow the same tactics of infantry attacks: they move and advance,” said the soldier, who gave only his call sign, “Gus,” according to Ukrainian military rules.

He noted that Russia, with its powerful air bombs, was destroying any hope the Ukrainians had of holding the area. “The Russians are destroying and moving, destroying and moving,” Goss said.

The urgent need to evacuate civilians from Pokrovsk was highlighted. high risk gambling Ukraine continues to achieve its goals by taking the war to Russia through its ongoing offensive on Kursk, which began on August 6.

The offensive is a bold attempt to change the dynamics of the two-and-a-half-year conflict, but it could backfire and leave Ukraine’s undermanned frontline defense vulnerable to Russian pressure. The Kremlin’s forces have gained battlefield momentum and superior forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine since the spring.

Ukraine is betting that it can handle the strain on its resources caused by the Kursk offensive without sacrificing Donetsk. Russia appears to believe it can contain the incursion without having to ease restrictions in Donetsk.

“Both cannot be right,” Nigel Gould-Davies, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said on Thursday. “The outcome hangs in the balance.”

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter, said the United States does not believe Ukraine is capable of holding the territory it has seized in Kursk in the long term.

The official said the Russians have not yet deployed a significant number of troops away from Ukraine and into Kursk to try to repel the Ukrainian operation. But U.S. officials believe that such a deployment or surge of Russian forces from elsewhere will inevitably happen and will likely be able to repel Ukrainian forces, the official said.

Russia’s slow advance through Donetsk this year has been costly in terms of troops and armor, but its gains have been accumulating.

Pokrovsk, with a pre-war population of about 60,000, is one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region. Its capture would jeopardize Ukraine’s defensive capabilities and supply routes, and bring Russia closer to its stated goal of capturing the entire Donetsk region.

Pokrovsk officials were meeting with residents to provide them with logistical details for the evacuation. Residents were offered shelter in western Ukraine, where they will be housed in separate housing and houses prepared for them.

“As the front lines approach Pokrovsk, the need to move to a safer place becomes increasingly urgent,” the local administration said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the chief of the General Staff, said on Friday that Ukrainian forces had advanced between one and three kilometers into Russian territory. He claimed earlier this week that Ukraine controlled more than 1,000 square kilometers of Russian territory, a claim Moscow denies and could not be independently verified.

Syrsky said Ukraine continues to capture Russian soldiers during the incursion as a “swap fund” for prisoners to be exchanged for Ukrainian prisoners of war, though it remains unclear how many. On Wednesday, Ukraine’s human rights chief Dmitry Lubinets said he had spoken with his Russian counterpart Tatyana Moskalkova about a possible prisoner swap.

On Friday, The Associated Press visited a detention center in Ukraine, the location of which cannot be disclosed due to security restrictions. Dozens of prisoners of war were seen, some walking with their hands tied behind their backs as a guard led them through a corridor. Some were eating portions of thin soup with cabbage and onions.

Facility officials said more than 300 prisoners have passed through it since the incursion began, 80 percent of them recruits.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that conscripts will not take part in the “special military operation,” Russia’s term for its war against Ukraine. But because of the speed of Ukraine’s incursion, the war has come to them.

Zelensky said on Thursday that Ukrainian forces had taken full control of the city of Sudzha, the largest Russian city to fall to Ukrainian forces since they began their offensive 10 days ago, a success that has boosted Ukrainian morale while embarrassing the Kremlin.

A family fleeing the town of Sudzha showed on Russian state television the shattered windows of their car after it was attacked while on the road.

“At the turn they opened fire, there were mines, we drove around the mines. Then we continued driving, and a drone hit us in Bondarevka,” Nikolai Netbayev said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday that the army had repelled Ukrainian advance attempts in the areas of Gordeyiv, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Sudzha, and Russkoye Porechnoye, 13 kilometers (8 miles) north of Sudzha.

Ukraine has destroyed a bridge over the Seim River in the Glushkovsky district with US-made HIMARS missiles, the first time they have been used in the Kursk region, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. Zakharova’s statement could not be independently verified.

The official TASS news agency reported that the destruction of the bridge would hinder the evacuation of residents of the Glushkovsky district.

The Russian Popular Front organization said that two of its volunteers were killed in Ukrainian shelling in the Kursk region while carrying out a mission to evacuate residents.

In the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk, a supermarket was destroyed by fire after being hit by Ukrainian gunfire, according to local officials. Eleven people were reported injured.

___

Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal. Associated Press reporters Samia Kulab and Volodymyr Yurchuk in Kiev, Alex Babenko and Evgeniy Maloletka in Ukraine, Jim Hintz in Tallinn, Estonia, and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed reporting.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine on https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine