Russia claims capture of new village near Pokrovsk, Donetsk region

Russia claimed on Saturday October 5 the capture of a new village near Pokrovsk, a town which serves as a logistical node in eastern Ukraine and to which Russian forces have been gradually approaching for weeks. “Thanks to active and decisive action, units of the southern troop grouping liberated the village of Zhelannoye Vtoroye”the Russian Defense Ministry said in its daily report.

This locality, which bears the name Jélanné Drugué in Ukrainian, is located southeast of the city of Ukraïnsk, which the Russian army captured at the end of September. In this sector of the front, Russian troops threaten the town of Pokrovsk, a key logistical hub for the Ukrainian army and where there are also major coal mines.

The Ukrainian army announced on Wednesday that it was withdrawing from the town of Vouhledar, 50 km south of Jélanné Drugué, leaving it in the hands of Russian troops after two and a half years of deadly fighting.

In Russian-occupied territories in eastern Ukraine, 11 people were injured Saturday in Ukrainian artillery shelling and drone strikes on the town of Gorlivka, according to its mayor Ivan Prikhodko.

A civilian was also killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in the Russian border region of Voronezh, its governor Alexander Gusev said on Telegram. On the Ukrainian side, two people were killed in Russian strikes on the Zaporizhia region, in the south of the country, announced its governor Ivan Fedorov.