(Reuters) - Russian forces, focused for weeks on seizing the key eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka, are now intent on capturing its vast coking plant, the town's mayor said on Friday.
Mayor Vitaliy Barabash, speaking on national television, said audio transmission intercepts had revealed that Moscow was now seeking to secure the town's giant coking plant.
Ukrainian military analysts say a sustained assault on Avdiivka had more political that military significance and could be little more than a propaganda prize for Moscow.
The General Staff report also reported that Ukrainian forces had repelled seven attacks near Kupiansk, a town in the northeast first seized by Russia but recaptured by Ukrainian forces in a fast-moving offensive late last year.
Russian accounts of the fighting said Moscow's forces beat back Ukrainian attempts to advance near Kupiansk and struck Ukrainian forces in a series of towns south and west of Donetsk.
Persons:
Vitaliy Barabash, Barabash, Avdiivka, Natalia Homeniuk, Homeniuk, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ron Popeski, Michael Perry
Organizations:
Reuters, Russian, Ukraine's, Staff, Moscow, The
Locations:
Ukrainian, Avdiivka, Donetsk, Luhansk, Russian, Bakhmut, Moscow, Kupiansk, Russia, Kharkiv, Odesa, Kherson, Lviv, Ukraine's, Poland, Ukraine