Russia said on Wednesday that its forces were advancing north inside Pokrovsk in a drive to take full control of the Ukrainian city, but the Ukrainian army said its units were battling hard to try to stop the Russians from gaining new ground.
Ukraine has acknowledged that its troops face a difficult position in the strategic eastern city, once an important transport and logistics hub for the Ukrainian army, which Russia has been trying to capture for more than a year.
Russia sees the city as the gateway to its capture of the remaining 10%, or 5,000 square kilometers of Ukraine's eastern industrial Donbas region, one of its key aims in the almost 4-year-old war.
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