Russian forces are inching toward the strategically important city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, threatening a vital Ukrainian supply line as Moscow continues its slow, grinding offensive.
Russia has been stretching Ukrainian defenses across the entire eastern front line for months, trying to capture as much territory as possible before new Ukrainian recruits and fresh batches of Western weapons start arriving on the battlefield.
The gains made by Russia have been largely incremental – the front line has barely moved in the past few months – but the recent advance toward Pokrovsk has Ukraine and its allies worried.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged the difficult situation in his nightly address to the nation on Sunday, saying Ukrainian troops were facing “extremely challenging” realities in that area.
“It is in the Pokrovsk direction that there have been the biggest number of Russian assaults these weeks – the most intense enemy attacks are precisely there and everyone who stops these Russian strikes and destroys this Russian offensive potential is performing one of the most important missions in this war,” Zelensky said.
Analysts at the United States-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said Tuesday that Russian troops have recently made “significant tactical advances” in the area, which sits just northwest of Avdiivka, the previously fiercely contested town that Ukrainian troops withdrew from in February.
Russian forces were about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Pokrovsk on Tuesday, according to the ISW, continuing what it called “intensive efforts to advance and conduct a limited tactical encirclement of Ukrainian forces in the Pokrovsk direction.”
Pokrovsk is not a major city – about 60,000 people lived there before the war and many have left since the start of the full-scale invasion. But it serves as a key hub for the Ukrainian military, thanks to its easy access to Kostiantynivka, another military center. The road connecting the two is used by the Ukrainians to resupply troops on the frontlines and evacuate casualties toward Dnipro.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that his goal is to seize all of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
Kostiantynivka is the southernmost part of a belt of four Ukrainian cities – with Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk – that form the backbone of Ukraine’s defenses of the region, which is why any progress of Russian troops toward Kostiantynivka is worrying.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces captured the Ukrainian villages of Lozuvatske over the weekend and Vovche on Monday. Both of them are about 15 kilometers (nine miles) from the road between Kostiantynivka and Pokrovsk.
Kyiv said its troops are fighting hard to push Russian troops back – adding Tuesday that the Ukrainian Armed Forces prevented 52 attacks in the direction of Pokrovsk in the past 24 hours.
It is unlikely the pressure will ease any time soon.
Ukraine finally started to receive new batches of US weapons in May, following months of delays, and it has recruited thousands of new soldiers that are currently in training and are expected to start arriving at the front lines in the fall.
The combination of the two should give Ukraine a much-needed boost and Russia’s strategy appears to be to slow this down as much as possible.
By pushing ahead and making these gradual, seemingly incremental advances along the more than 600-mile-long (1,000-kilometer) front line, Russia is forcing Ukraine to commit to defensive operations rather than gear up for a counteroffensive.
CNN’s Svitlana Vlasova and Eve Brennan contributed reporting.
