Russia has deployed around 170,000 troops in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region where they are trying to capture the stronghold of Pokrovsk in a major push for battlefield victory, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday.
"The situation in Pokrovsk is difficult," Zelenskyy said, while also rejecting recent Russian claims that the devastated city is surrounded after more than a year of fighting.
