Russia steps up attacks near Ukraine’s Kurakhove in east

Russian forces focused their assaults in eastern Ukraine near the embattled town of Kurakhove on Friday as Ukrainian troops tried to hold the line at a critical juncture of the war, Kyiv said.

The Russians also pressed towards Ukraine’s rail hub of Pokrovsk, about 33 km (20 miles) north of Kurakhove, in an attempt to open new lines of attack, disrupt Ukrainian logistics, and take control of the rest of the eastern Donetsk region 2-1/2 years on from Russia’s invasion of its neighbor.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has praised his troops for holding their positions in Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, the two most difficult sectors in the east.

Ukraine’s forces are stretched thin but the military said they had repelled 64 assaults near Kurakhove in the past day, the most intense fighting there this month.

The Ukrainian military also reported repelling 36 attacks near Pokrovsk on the same day.

Together, the action on these fronts accounted for more than two-thirds of about 140 clashes reported along over 1,000 km (600 miles) of frontlines in the northeast, east and south of the country in the last day.

Kyiv launched a cross-border assault into Russia’s Kursk region in early August in the hope of diverting forces from the eastern front.

The Ukrainians made rapid initial gains before stalling, while the situation around Pokrovsk has remained perilous.

In Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, a Russian guided bomb attack on Friday killed two people and injured six others, including a four-year-old child, local authorities said.

Ukraine used Sumy, which borders Kursk, as a staging ground for its incursion into Russia in August.

The settlement of Yampil, about 20 km (12 miles) from the border, was hit with four guided bombs, Sumy regional prosecutors said on Telegram. The attack damaged residential houses and a clinic, and cut power supplies, the regional military administration said.