General Staff: there were 72 Russian assaults in the Pokrovsky direction last day

226 combat clashes were recorded at the front last day, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported in the morning briefing on December 2.

According to the report, most of the Russian attacks were in the Pokrovsky direction. “Our defenders stopped 72 assault actions of the aggressor in the areas of Novy Shahovy, Dorozhny, Nikanorivka, Bilytskyi, Shahovy, Rodynskyi, Myrnograd, Novoeconomikhny, Rivne, Pokrovsk, Zvirovoy, Kotlyny, Udachny, Molodetskyi, Novopodgorodnyi, Filia and in the direction of the settlement of Grishine,” the message reads.

According to the command, hostilities also continued in the North-Slobozhansk and Kursk directions, in the South-Slobozhansk, Kupyansk, Lymansk, Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, Kostiantynivsk, Oleksandrivsk, Prydniprovsk directions.

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“Yesterday, the enemy launched one missile and 66 air strikes, used one missile and dropped 192 guided air bombs. In addition, it carried out 3,547 attacks, including 112 from rocket salvo systems, and brought in 3,228 kamikaze drones to destroy them,” the message reads.

The day before, the Kremlin announced that on the evening of November 30, Russian leader Vladimir Putin visited one of the command posts of the joint group of Russian forces fighting in Ukraine, where the Russian command allegedly informed him about the capture of the cities of Pokrovsk and Vovchansk, in the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions of Ukraine, respectively.

The authorities of Ukraine deny such reports. On the evening of December 1, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi, speaking in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron, emphasized that all these cities remain under the control of Ukraine. “Definitely, there are advances in Russia, certainly there are several offensive actions and operations in Russia. None of these operations was successful,” Zelenskyi said at a press conference with Macron.

However, he admitted that the situation in Pokrovsk and other areas “remains difficult.”

Pokrovsk – a city with a population of about 1,250 people (estimated by the local authorities at the end of October, before the start of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation – more than 60,000) – is an important road and railway junction and was under threat of encirclement by Russian troops for most of the year.