Zelensky visits frontline troops in Ukraine’s Donetsk region as AFU struggles to hold Pokrovsk

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited troops in the Dobropillya sector of the frontline about 20 kilometres from the embattled Donetsk region city of Pokrovsk on Tuesday, he wrote on X. 

In Dobropillya, Zelensky met with the 1st Azov Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine, a formation formed around the original Azov Brigade, a grouping once infamous for its ultranationalist roots that was later celebrated for its heroic defence of Mariupol in 2022. 

Zelensky said that he had discussed the situation on the frontline with the troops, addressed the scaling up of drone production, and personally presented two soldiers, Oleksandr Alikseyenko and Oleksandr Tishayev, with the Cross of Military Merit for having successfully held their frontline positions for 165 days, Ukrainian independent media outlet Ukrainian News Network reported. 

Nearby Pokrovsk, a city with a pre-war population of around 60,000 people, has been the focus of intense fighting for months and saw most of its remaining civilian population depart earlier this year. The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) still hold positions in the city despite some military analysts estimating in August that they would be unlikely to hold the city until October. 

Hostilities in Pokrovsk began in February 2024, shortly after Russian forces captured the nearby city of Avdiivka, and although fighting slowed between late 2024 and June 2025, there have been substantial Russian advances since July.

Pokrovsk has long served as a key AFU logistics hub, housing a major drone operations unit that, according to the Institute for the Study of War, has increasingly been subjected to Russian infantry assaults, undermining the AFU’s hold on the city and allowing Russian forces to consolidate their positions in the east of the city as well as in its central districts.