Russia announced on Wednesday that its forces are continuing to advance around Pokrovsk, intensifying their assault on the devastated Ukrainian city, which local officials say is now in a dire humanitarian state.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, troops have pushed Ukrainian forces out of Sukhyi Yar, just south of Pokrovsk — a key tactical area for the Kremlin’s broader strategy to advance northward toward the larger Ukrainian-held cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in the Donetsk region.
Pokrovsk, once home to over 60,000 people but now reduced to around 7,000 residents, remains strategically important due to its road and railway junctions. The city has been under near-constant threat of encirclement by Russian forces throughout this year.
While Moscow’s claims of progress cannot be independently verified, they come as the Kremlin confirms reports that the United Kingdom attempted to open a secret communication channel to restart dialogue aimed at ending Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II — a move first reported by the Financial Times.
“There have indeed been contacts,” said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, adding that the talks failed because there was “no willingness to hear our position.”
“Since it was impossible to exchange views, no mutual dialogue took place,” he stated, without disclosing when these contacts occurred.
Earlier the same day, Russia’s state news agency TASS cited a Foreign Ministry official as saying that Moscow is ready to resume peace negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul.
The two sides last met in Istanbul in July, for their third round of direct peace talks, but no substantial progress was made beyond an agreement on prisoner exchanges. The war, sparked by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has since entered its fourth year with no clear resolution in sight.
“The Russian team is ready — the ball is in Ukraine’s court,” said Aleksei Polishchuk, head of the Second CIS Department at Russia’s Foreign Ministry.
Moscow has repeatedly said that President Vladimir Putin would be willing to meet his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, in the Russian capital — a precondition Kyiv has firmly rejected.
After the peace process stalled, the United States last month imposed sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, following what President Donald Trump described as his frustration with Putin’s refusal to end the invasion.
