Russia cuts water to Ukrainian city amid eastern frontline push

KYIV — Russia has cut off water supplies to the city of Pokrovsk as Moscow expands its offensive across Donetsk and Kherson regions.

Pokrovsk, a small city in Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, is a key node for army logistics and is facing intense shelling.

 “As a result of the hostilities, the work of the modular filter station, thanks to which Pokrovsk received water, was stopped,” Donetsk Governor Vadym Filashkin said in a statement Thursday. The government is unable to resume water access and has urged locals to evacuate immediately, he added.

“The situation is difficult and will not get better in the near future.”

Over the past 24 hours Russian troops have occupied the village of Lisivka and pushed closer to Pokrovsk, about 10 kilometers distant. Last week the Ukrainian government halted evacuation trains from Pokrovsk due to security risks, asking its inhabitants to instead move some 110 km to Pavlograd, a city in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

“As we can see, the Russians put everything in the direction of Pokrovsk,” Ukrainian army spokesman Dmytro Lykhoviy told POLITICO. “They don’t have enough resources to conduct a massive offensive on several fronts at once, and this has been evident for the past few months.”

The frontline in Ukraine currently stretches over 1,000 kilometers, and some Ukrainian army units near Pokrovsk claim to have seen signs of exhaustion among Russian forces in the area.

“We have relative silence, compared to when we had 40 assaults per day. Now it’s one or two assaults a day, and there is less equipment,” Ivan Sekach, spokesman of the Ukrainian army’s 110th brigade, told POLITICO.

“In our opinion, this is due to the exhaustion of the enemy and the insufficient number of enemy forces to storm our area.”

This week Russia launched a counter-offensive at home, in its Ukraine-controlled Kursk region.

“The Russians did not complete the task of cutting the strategic Pokrovsk-Kostyantynivka highway,” Sekach added. “Yes, there is a threat [of drones], but with electronic warfare and good wheels, you can drive quite safely. Civilians also drive there at their own risk.”

Ongoing attacks

Elsewhere, Russia has continued to barrage Ukraine with missiles and drones.

Early Thursday, Russian forces fired five missiles and 64 drones toward Ukraine’s Chernihiv, Sumy, Kyiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Poltava regions.

Ukraine’s air force reported shooting down 44 drones but none of the missiles Russian aviators fired from jets early Thursday morning.

The Ukrainian army general staff reported that Russia had shelled Ukraine more than 5,000 times in the past 24 hours. 

In addition to the Pokrovsk offensive, the general staff said, Russian forces have increased their push to the south on the towns of Kurakhove and Vuhledar, a Ukrainian stronghold about 80 km from Pokrovsk that they have almost destroyed, expanding their campaign in Donetsk region. The general staff noted the army had repelled the attacks.

In Zaporizhzhia, 200 km to the west of Pokrovsk, the situation remains relatively calm, with only positional artillery duels and drone fights.

However, Russian troops have started probing Ukrainian defenses in Kherson region to the south on the Black Sea, trying to capture islands in the Dnipro River in small groups, using boats and jet skis, Lykhoviy said.

So far they have had little success, but continue to terrorize Kherson civilians with drones and glide bombs, he added.