Street fighting has begun in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kurakhove, Russian security services told TASS news agency. The Russian military is trying to gain ground advantage at a time when both Russia and Ukraine are stepping up drone launches.
Russia's security service said there was "urban fighting on the territory" of the city of Kurakhove, noting that there were no signs that the Ukrainian army was mobilizing additional troops into the area.
On November 9, Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Sysrksyi said that the situation in the area around Kurakhove and Pokrovsk is difficult and “tends to escalate.”
Russia has been advancing rapidly on the ground in recent weeks and is likely to seize the southern part of Ukraine's former industrial heartland.
After capturing the town of Selydove, the Russian army set its sights on Kurakhove - an important logistics center in the southern Donetsk region.
With the aim of encircling Kurakhove, which once had a population of about 18,000, the Russian army has advanced to villages several kilometers south and east of Kurakhove, according to data from the Deep State monitoring platform, which is maintaining cooperation with the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
The Ukrainian General Staff reported 39 Russian attacks on at least eight settlements around Kurakhove on November 10 alone. However, Kiev did not mention street fighting in its update.
Since mid-October, the pace of Russian advances in eastern Ukraine has increased, threatening the entire southern region of the Donetsk region.
On November 10 alone, Ukraine attacked Russian regions with nearly 30 drones, causing many flights to be suspended for several hours at airports around the Russian capital. On the same day, large-scale Russian drone attacks also targeted Ukrainian territory.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, in recent days, 84 drones launched by Ukraine against civilian infrastructure have been shot down or controlled. Some of the debris fell in residential areas.
The General Staff of Ukraine reported an attack on an arms depot in Russia's Bryansk region that caused a fire.
Over the past week, Russia has launched more than 800 guided bombs, about 600 attack drones and nearly 20 missiles of various types, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social network X.
