US EditionPutin claims he’s captured Pokrovsk – but Ukraine says stronghold still stands
Zelensky’s troops say they have forced back Russians seen raising flag in strategically crucial city
Antonia Langford is a Freelance Journalist, based in Kyiv. She writes for The Telegraph, The Guardian, and The Times, among others. She is also the Evening News Manager at The Kyiv Post. She covers Ukraine and Russia. Antonia was shortlisted for Best Early Career Journalist in the Freelance Journalist Awards 2025.
Antonia Langford is a Freelance Journalist, based in Kyiv. She writes for The Telegraph, The Guardian, and The Times, among others. She is also the Evening News Manager at The Kyiv Post. She covers Ukraine and Russia. Antonia was shortlisted for Best Early Career Journalist in the Freelance Journalist Awards 2025.
Vladimir Putin hailed the capture of the key front-line stronghold of Pokrovsk hours before talks with US envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow.
ButUkraine dismissed the Russian report, saying the strategic city was still standing and Moscow’s claims were part of its information war.
Speaking late on Monday,Putin hailed the apparent advance as an “important direction” during his third uniformed visit to command posts close to the fighting in just over a month.
Footage released byRussia’s defence ministry and aired on state television showed soldiers raising a Russian flag in the centre of the shattered city.
Moscow is believed to have controlled the city centre for weeks after pressing in from the south, while Ukraine says it still holds northern districts of the strategic hub.
Ukrainian soldiers said on Tuesday that they had beaten back the unit that planted the flag, insisting that fighting continued in the vital logistics node in eastern Donetsk.
The Ukrainian military’s eastern command said on social media: “Search and assault operations and the elimination of the enemy in urban areas continue in Pokrovsk.”
Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on X that Russia had “launched new disinformation campaigns” ahead of the American delegation’s visit, without directly mentioning Pokrovsk or the wider front line.
DeepState, a Ukrainian open-source intelligence (OsInt) mapping project, said large portions of Pokrovsk were still contested, aligning with assessments from other analysts.
The fortress city – previously known as Krasnoarmiisk – has been one of the fiercest battle zones, with Ukrainian forces resisting a major Russian offensive under worsening conditions for a year.
Its rail and road links have made it central to Ukraine’s fortifications, though its strategic value has diminished asKyiv has been forced to shift to alternative supply lines amid heavy drone and artillery strikes on the main routes.
It has been widely anticipated that Russia will eventually take the city, but Kyiv continues to mount attacks on Russian positions there withdrones.
Analysts have warned that Moscow’s announcement ahead of Mr Witkoff’s sixth visit there this year was likely timed to try to extract further concessions in peace talks and defer a ceasefire.
Territorial gains on the battlefield will likely strengthen Moscow’s negotiating position, and Pokrovsk would be one of its biggest captures in months.
The capture of the stronghold would show Mr Witkoff that Russian forces were making headway in Donetsk aspeace talks centre on Ukraine ceding the rest of the region.
Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s centre for countering disinformation, said the claims had been made “exclusively for Western audiences and to raise the stakes in diplomacy”.
Mr Witkoff, along withJared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, were expected to meet with Putin on Tuesday afternoon to discuss a revised version of an earlier peace plan reportedly co-authored by Moscow, incorporating later input from Ukrainian officials.
Russia has often been accused of inflating its battlefield successes.
In November, Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s top general who reports to Putin, claimed that Russia had captured the city of Kupyansk just as Ukraine received a US proposal to end the war. The claim was disputed even by Russian military bloggers.
Last month, a former military cartographer who deserted the Russian army, told independent outlet Mediazona that he had been forced to make maps for Gerasimov showing non-existent advances.
If Moscow succeeded in seizing Pokrovsk, it could offer Russian troops a path to drive north towards Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the two biggest cities left under Ukraine’s control in the Donetsk region.
Last month, Russia made its biggest advances since November 2024, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank.
Russian media suggested that Moscow could use the purported gains to fend off US pressure to agree to a peace deal in Ukraine.
Komsomolskaya Pravda, a Moscow daily newspaper, cast the purported advance as “a hint that more and more Ukrainian territories are under our control, and next time Russia’s conditions may be tougher”. Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the government paper, said there was now “no need to rush” in talks.
Russian commanders told Putin on Monday night that their forces were advancing along the entire front and had taken the town of Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region. Ukrainian officials have not responded to the claims.
