A woman walks past a house that was destroyed after a Russian strike on a residential area in Pokrovsk, Ukraine, on August 3, 2024.
CNN —
Russia is “rapidly approaching” a key military hub in eastern Ukraine, a local official has said, as Moscow continues its advances despite Kyiv’s surprise gainsin its enemy’s Kurskregion.
While Pokrovsk is not a majorcity– about 60,000 people lived there before the war and many have left since the start of the full-scale invasion – it servesasakeyhub for theUkrainianmilitary thanks to its easy access to Kostiantynivka, another military center.
Ukrainian troops use the road connecting the two to resupply the front lines and evacuate casualties toward Dnipro.
Serhii Dobriak, head of the Pokrovskcitymilitary administration, urged the communitythere to evacuate without delay.
“The enemy is rapidly approaching the outskirts of Pokrovsk,” he said in a Telegram post on Thursday.
His warning is proof that Moscow has not relented in its attack on other parts of Ukraine, despite Kyiv’s successful incursion across the border over the past week, a major development after two-and-a-half years of open conflict.
Ukraine said it has captured more than 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) of Russian territory since the start of its surprise assault, forcing tens of thousands of Russians from their homes.
On Friday, Russia’s foreign ministry said Ukraine had used Western rockets for the first time to destroy a bridge over the Seym river in the Kursk region, adding the strike killed volunteers trying to evacuate civilians.
HIMARS, or the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, has perhaps been the most revered and feared piece of weaponry in Ukraine’s fight and since arriving have helped Ukraine to take back significant swaths of territory from Russia.
Ukraine has used US weaponry and vehicles as part of its push into Russian territory, according to US officials, even though the Biden administration did put boundaries on the use of US weaponry in Russia.
Ukraine officials said its military, already some 35 kilometers into Russian territory, is still advancing “in some areas from 1 to 3 kilometers,” on Friday.
Russia appears to have diverted several thousand troops from frontline fighting in occupied Ukraine in order to address the territorial loss in the Kursk region.
But according to Dobriak, the enemy is “almost right up close” to Pokrovsk, Ukraine’skeylogistics and military hub that hasbecome the focus of theRussian offensive in the Donetskregion.
Medics of the Ukrainian battalion "Da Vinci Wolves" prepare an ambulance for the evacuation of wounded at their base in the direction of Pokrovsk, Ukraine, on August 1, 2024.
“They are a bit more than 10 kilometers (about 6.2 miles) from the outskirts of Pokrovsk,” he said, adding that the situation “is only getting worse.”
For months, Russia has been stretching Ukrainian defenses across the entire front line, trying to capture as much territory as possible before new Ukrainian recruits and fresh batches ofWestern weaponsstart 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.
The city’s capture would bringRussian President Vladimir Putin closer to his goal of seizing all of theeasternUkrainianregions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
Kostiantynivka is the southernmost part of a belt of fourUkrainiancities – with Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk – that form the backbone of*ckraine’s defenses of theregion, so any progress ofRussian troops toward the city is significant.
Officer of*ckraine’s 59th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade Serhii Tsehotskyi toldUkrainiannational broadcaster Suspilne on Friday thatUkraine’s incursioninto Russiahad not led to a decrease inMoscow’s attacks in the Donetskregion.
He said Russian attempts to advance do not stop “for a minute,” and “the battles continue around the clock.”
Ukrainian servicemen in an undisclosed area in the Pokrovsk district, the eastern Donetsk region, on August 8, 2024.
“Takingintoconsideration the events in theKurskregion, they (theRussian forces) are trying to do everything in order to be successful at least somewhere,” he said.
Ukrainianarmy chief Oleksandr Syrskyi acknowledged Friday that “intense fighting” is taking place in the cities of Pokrovsk and Toretsk.
TheUS-based Institute for the Study of War said Thursday thatRussian forces are “maintaining their relatively high offensive tempo” in Donetsk, “demonstrating that theRussian military command continues to prioritize advances in eastern Ukraine even as Ukraineis pressuringRussian forces within” theKursk region.
Additional reporting from CNN’s Olga Voitovych in Kyiv and Edward Szekeres in Hong Kong.
