Russia said Friday its forces had captured Sergiivka, another frontline village some 15 km (nine miles) away from the Ukrainian-held logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
Pokrovsk lies on the intersection of a key road that supplies Ukrainian troops and towns across the eastern front and has long been a target for the Russian army.
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In a daily briefing, the Russian defense ministry said its army units “liberated the village of Sergeevka” in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, using the Russian name for the village.
Russian forces have been inching towards Pokrovsk for months, taking a string of tiny villages over the past weeks as they seek to reach the outskirts of the city.
Earlier this week, Moscow claimed to have captured the villages of Lysychne and Ivanivka, both north of Sergiivka and several kilometers away from Pokrovsk.
The head of Pokrovsk’s military administration, Sergiy Dobryak, warned on Thursday that Russia was a little over 10 km (6 miles) from the outskirts of the city and urged remaining residents to evacuate.
“The enemy is rapidly approaching the outskirts of Pokrovsk. Evacuation is underway,” he said on Telegram.
Moscow’s advances in the east come as Ukraine mounts an unprecedented cross-border attack into Russia’s Kursk region, where Kyiv claims to control several dozen Russian settlements.
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