Ukraine on Sunday said it retook a mining village near the embattled strategic city of Pokrovsk, which Russia has tried to capture for months, after President Volodymyr Zelensky said his forces had made gains.
“A number of counterattacks by Ukrainian forces have had some success,” a spokesman for troops in the area, Viktor Tregubov, said on Ukrainian television. “We can already talk about the liberation of the village of Pishchane.”
The announcement came just over a month after Russia said it took Pishchane, around eight kilometers (five miles) southwest of Pokrovsk.
The village is home to a key mine that belongs to Ukraine’s main steelmaker Metinvest.
Tregubov said that “there has been a certain turnaround in the Pokrovsk sector.”
He acknowledged that it was not the first time Pishchane has changed hands but believed that “this time.. it looks a little more serious.”
Zelensky said this week that the military situation around Pokrovsk had “improved,” but did not provide details.
The Pishchane switch comes as Moscow has claimed daily small advances and Ukraine and Europe brace for a summit between Russian and US leaders Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
