Russian military on Saturday, Dec. 14, reportedly raised the flag of the Russian Federation on the administration building in Kurakhove, a city in the Pokrovsky district of Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
The video, shared by Russian military correspondent Grigory Vdovin on his Telegram channel, shows two soldiers entering the city council building before placing the flag on the second floor. According to Meduza outlet, the building’s coordinates confirm the location.
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Kyiv Post wasn't able to independently verify the authenticity of the video.
According to the Deep State OSINT project, which is linked to Ukraine's Ministry of Defense, Russian forces now control most of Kurakhove. However, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) still hold key industrial zones, including the Kurakhovska Thermal Power Plant and the Pipe Plant in the western part of the city.
Russian forces are focusing on capturing Kurakhove, a frontline town in the Donetsk region, and the nearby Kurakhove Reservoir to establish a bridgehead for an assault on Pokrovsk.
Pokrovsk sits on a key road that links multiple cities that formed a defensive arc against Moscow’s advances and is the last major city in the central part of the Donetsk region that remains under Kyiv’s control.
The New York Times (NYT), reported Thursday that Moscow had shifted recent tactics near Pokrovsk using open terrain to the south of the city to out-flank Ukrainian positions rather than directly engaging Kyiv’s defensive lines.
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Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky described the situation in Pokrovsk as “extremely fierce” on Thursday in a Facebook statement after visiting frontline positions, adding that Kyiv has been reinforcing defenses to contain Moscow’s advances.
Syrsky also mentioned the “unconventional decisions” Kyiv would have to make to bolster defense and “more effectively destroy the invaders” without providing further details.
Serhii Kuzan, the chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center, a non-governmental research group, told the NYT that Ukraine might launch a surprise offensive to divert Russian troops basing his assessment on Syrsky’s previous tactics, such as the Kharkiv counteroffensive and Kyiv’s Kursk incursion.
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