Zelensky: Over 300 Russian troops in Pokrovsk as assaults mount

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia's top battlefield objective remains the rapid capture of Pokrovsk, a mining city in eastern Ukraine that has been fiercely contested for over a year.

"According to our data, there 314 Russians inside the city itself," Zelensky told reporters in Kiev. At the end of October, he said "up to 200" were operating within Pokrovsk.

Russian forces had carried out 220 assault attempts around Pokrovsk over the past three days, the president said.

"It is very important for Russia to do everything possible to actually capture Pokrovsk," Zelensky said.

Moscow, he added, wanted to show the United States that it was achieving battlefield successes and could take control of the entire Donbass territory, the country's industrial and coal-mining heartland.

Despite ongoing attacks, Russian forces had made "no progress" near the nearby cities of Siversk, Kramatorsk and Kostyantynivka, Zelensky said.

Pokrovsk lies in the Donetsk region, which is part of the Donbass.

In the neighbouring Kharkiv region, Zelensky reported territorial advances for Ukrainian troops near the city of Kupiansk.

But he said the situation is deteriorating in Vovchansk, a city close to the Russian border, and Kremlin troops are preparing further advances there.

Ukraine has been defending itself against the Russian invasion for more than three and a half years with Western support.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly claimed that Ukrainian forces in Pokrovsk and Kupiansk are encircled — assertions that Zelensky and the Ukrainian General Staff have consistently rejected.

In the southern Kherson region, at least two civilians were killed by Russian shelling and another six were injured, the regional prosecutor's office said on social media on Friday.

Russian forces used artillery, rocket launchers and drones in the regional capital, Kherson, and the villages of Novovorontsovka and Bilozerka, the office said. Several homes and a clinic were damaged.

Much of the Kherson region is occupied by Russian troops, with the Dnipro River forming the front line.