Il Nuovo Postiglione - Ukraine sends special forces to embattled eastern city

Pokrovsk, in the eastern Donetsk region, lies on a major supply route for the Ukrainian army and has been in Moscow's sights for over a year.

The city was home to 60,000 people before the war but has now been largely devastated by fighting.

DeepState, an online battlefield map linked to the Ukrainian army, shows much of the city lies in a grey area where both Russian and Ukrainian forces are fighting for control.

"A comprehensive operation to destroy and displace enemy forces from Pokrovsk is under way," Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky said in a post on Facebook.

"By my order, consolidated groups of the Special Operations Forces, the Special Operations Command, the Security Service of Ukraine, and other units of Ukraine's defence forces... are operating in the city," he added, without saying how long they had been there.

Special forces are a branch of the military trained to carry out covert operations, often through unconventional warfare such as sabotage and diversion.

Videos published on social media appeared to show helicopters flying over the city.

Syrsky denied reports that Moscow had encircled the logistics hub, saying there was "no blockade".

"We are doing everything to implement logistics," he said.

The city's capture would allow Russian forces to sweep further into the Donbas region and provide a propaganda boost for the Kremlin, which claims the region as its own.

Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022, has been grinding across the front line in costly metre-for-metre battles for over a year. It currently occupies around a fifth of the country.

F.Ciambrone--INP