The Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, said today that they are advancing along the entire front line in Ukraine and now their main goal is to eliminate Ukrainian units that are surrounded in Mirnograd, Reuters reported, BTA reported.
Gerasimov visited a Russian army command post to meet with officers from the "Center" group, which is fighting in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region. The chief of the general staff said President Vladimir Putin had ordered the liquidation of Ukrainian forces in Mirnograd, whose pre-war population was about 46,000.
According to Gerasimov, Russia controls more than 30% of the buildings in Mirnograd, which Moscow calls by its Soviet name of Dimitrov.
Russia says it has captured the entire city of Pokrovsk, which it calls by its Soviet-era name - Krasnoarmeysk. The Russian military also claims to have surrounded Ukrainian units in Mirnograd, which Russia calls Dimitrov.
Ukraine has repeatedly rejected Russian claims that Pokrovsk has fallen and says it still controls part of the city and that Ukrainian forces in Mirnograd are continuing to fight.
Russia currently controls 19.2% of Ukraine's territory, including the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014, Luhansk Oblast, over 80% of Donetsk Oblast, and about 75% of Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts, as well as parts of Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, and Dnipropetrovsk Oblasts.
Ukraine says it is holding its defensive lines and forcing Russia to pay a high price for territorial gains that Kiev describes as relatively modest.
Putin said last week that if Ukrainian forces do not withdraw from Donbas, Russia will take full control of the region by force.
Kiev categorically rejects the possibility of making territorial concessions.