Russia and Ukraine claim 'gains' in accounts of Pokrovsk fighting

Moscow and Kyiv painted very different pictures of the battlefield on Sunday, each insisting momentum was on their side as the fighting around Pokrovsk intensified.

Russia said its forces continued to press forward in Pokrovsk, describing gains on the eastern and northwestern edges of the city.

Its daily bulletin sketched out a broad sweep of operations across Sumy, Kharkiv, and several other regions, where Moscow claimed to have struck 143 targets ranging from military-industrial sites to fuel depots and temporary troop positions.

Russian officials also said air defence units had shot down 230 fixed-wing drones in the past day, and that ten Ukrainian breakout attempts near Pokrovsk had been pushed back.

Ukraine said its forces had held their ground. The General Staff reported 271 battles across the frontline and said troops repelled Russian assaults in several directions.

Kyiv added that its air force, missile units, and artillery struck four Russian troop concentrations and two artillery systems.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had used roughly 1,400 drones, 1,100 guided bombs, and 66 missiles against Ukraine over the past week.

The confrontation stretched into the Black Sea as well. Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova condemned Ukrainian drone attacks on two Gambian-flagged oil tankers headed for Novorossiysk and on the port itself.

The strikes were carried out on Friday and Saturday, with the port targeted the following day, according to Moscow.

Zakharova said Ukrainian intelligence services had claimed responsibility, and argued that the tankers formed part of civilian energy infrastructure vital to global energy security and not covered by any sanctions.

She said such attacks endangered safe navigation in a key waterway and urged the wider international community to issue a clear condemnation.

The competing statements added another layer to a conflict in which both sides regularly push out sharply different accounts of the same events, each trying to shape how the broader struggle is understood as winter approaches.

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