Russia says its forces are advancing north inside Pokrovsk in a drive to take full control of the Ukrainian city, while Ukraine's army says its units are battling hard to stop their progress.

Ukraine has acknowledged its troops face a difficult position in the strategic eastern city, once an important transport and logistics hub for the Ukrainian army, which Russia has been trying to capture for more than a year.

Russia sees the city as the gateway to its capture of the remaining 10 per cent, or 5000 sq km of Ukraine's eastern industrial Donbas region, one of its key aims in the almost four-year-old war.

The Russian defence ministry said two assault groups were destroying Ukrainian troops that were surrounded in several districts of the city and continuing an offensive pushing north thr

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