Russia’s defense ministry has claimed that its forces have definitively captured the frontline town of Kurakhove in the eastern Donetsk region.
In 2022, Russia invaded and effectively annexed four regions of eastern and southeastern Ukraine. These include Donetsk and Luhansk, which together comprise the Russian-speaking Donbas region.
According to the ministry statement, Andrei Belousov, Russia’s defense chief, “congratulated military personnel ... who showed courage and heroism during the liberation of Kurakhove.”
Kyiv has yet to confirm the town’s capture by Russian forces.
Speaking to Reuters on Jan. 6, Viktor Trehubov, a Ukrainian military spokesman, insisted that Ukrainian forces were still fighting Russian troops in the town.
In an evening report, the General Staff of Ukraine’s military said Russian forces had carried out 25 separate attacks on Ukrainian positions near Kurakhove over the previous 24 hours.
The General Staff did not, however, say the embattled town had fallen.
With a prewar population of more than 20,000, Kurakhove is home to a sizeable industrial zone, a thermal power plant, and a freshwater reservoir.
It also bestrides a major highway linking eastern Ukraine to the country’s southern provinces.
According to Russia’s defense ministry, the loss of Kurakhove will “significantly” hinder Kyiv’s ability to provide logistical support to its forces in Donetsk.
Within the past decade, the ministry said, Kyiv had reinforced the town with a complex network of “long-range firing points and underground communications.”
To defend it, Ukraine’s military had deployed more than 15,000 troops in Kurakhove, including “formations of nationalists and foreign mercenaries,” the ministry claimed.
It went on to assert that more than 12,000 of these troops had been killed during two months of fierce fighting for control of the town.
The Epoch Times could not independently verify the Russian defense ministry’s claims.
Closing In on Pokrovsk
Kurakhove is located roughly 20 miles south of Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian logistics hub toward which Russian forces have been steadily advancing for months.On the evening of Jan. 6, Russia’s defense ministry claimed that its forces had also taken the village of Dachenske, which sits less than five miles from Pokrovsk.
The capture of Pokrovsk would bring Moscow one step closer to cementing its control over the entire Donbas region.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed that full control over the Donbas region was among Moscow’s “primary objectives.”
In advance of a looming Russian assault, most of Pokrovsk’s civilian population, which stood at some 60,000 before the war, has reportedly already left the town.
Trehubov, the Ukrainian military spokesman, recently described the area around Pokrovsk as “one of the hottest parts of the front.”
Nevertheless, he said, Russian forces are “currently unable to achieve such a success as to threaten Pokrovsk itself.”
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who will return to the White House on Jan. 20, has pledged to swiftly initiate cease-fire talks between the warring sides.
It’s unclear how he and his incoming administration plan to do so.
Russia demands the full withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from all territories claimed by Moscow, including both Donetsk and Luhansk, as a precondition for ending the conflict.
Kyiv, meanwhile, has vowed to continue fighting—despite steadily dwindling military resources—to recover all lost territory.
