The Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation reported to Putin about the capture of the Ukrainian cities of Pokrovsk and Volchansk. In Kyiv, they say that battles continue for the settlements, despite the advance of the Russian army, DW reports.
The Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Valery Gerasimov, stated that Russian troops captured the cities of Pokrovsk and Volchansk in the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions of Ukraine. He reported this to Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit on November 30 to one of the command points of the Joint Group of Forces of the Russian Federation fighting in Ukraine. The information about Gerasimov's report to Putin was disseminated on Monday, December 1, by the press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov.
According to the Kremlin's website, the commanders of the military groupings "Center" and "East" - Valery Solodchuk and Andrey Ivanayev - also reported to the Russian president about taking control of the southern part of the city of Myrnohrad in the Donetsk region and the beginning of an operation to capture the city of Huliaipole in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported ongoing battles for Pokrovsk
Meanwhile, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported in its daily evening report that battles are still ongoing in the Pokrovsk direction. "Throughout the day in the Pokrovsk direction, the aggressor carried out 49 assault and offensive actions in the areas of the settlements of Novoe Shakhovo, Dorozhne, Nikanorivka, Belytske, Shakhovo, Rodynske, Myrnohrad, Novoekonomichne, Rovno, Pokrovsk, Zverove, Kotlyne, Udachne, Molodetske, Novopodhorodne, Filya and in the direction of the settlement of Hryshyne. Currently, battles are taking place in five locations," the Ukrainian command stated.
It also mentioned fighting near Volchansk. The report from the General Staff does not mention the retreat of Ukrainian Armed Forces units to new positions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the evening of December 1, following a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, denied the capture of Pokrovsk and Volchansk. At the same time, he emphasized that the situation in Pokrovsk and other directions "remains difficult."
The head of the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Andriy Kovalенко, described the statements from the Russian side about taking control of settlements as "raising the stakes in diplomacy" for a Western audience. According to Kovalенко, Volchansk remains under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as does the city of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, which Gerasimov had also previously reported to Putin as captured.
Russia's advance near Pokrovsk
On the maps of OSINT projects tracking changes in the front line, neither Volchansk nor Pokrovsk have yet been fully captured by the Russian army. However, earlier, the Ukrainian OSINT project DeepState reported an accelerated pace of territory capture in Ukraine by Russian troops. According to its data, in less than a week in early November, the Russian Armed Forces captured 134 square kilometers of territory in Ukraine - twice as much as in October.
According to the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the main role in shaping the battlefield situation, particularly regarding the advance of Russian troops near Pokrovsk, was played by Russia's months-long campaign to destroy the logistics of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with drones near the rear. The success of the Russian army across the front, especially in the direction of Pokrovsk and Huliaipole, was also aided by weather conditions - fog and precipitation, the ISW report stated on November 15.
