By SAMYA KULLAB and YEHOR KONOVALOV, Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces are bypassing a key stronghold in eastern Ukraine that they have fought for months to capture and are focusing instead on cutting supply lines to it, a Ukrainian official said Monday.

Russian troops are going around the vital logistics hub of Pokrovsk, where a steadfast Ukrainian defense has kept them at bay, and are taking aim at a highway that leads from there to the central Ukraine city of Dnipro, Maj. Viktor Trehubov, a local Ukrainian army spokesperson, told The Associated Press.

That route is crucial for supplies feeding Ukrainian forces in the entire region. Cutting the highway traffic would also severely weaken Pokrovsk.

“So far, they have not achieved their goal and (Ukrainian forces) are working to ensure that they do not achieve it in the future — just as they have not been successful in other attempts to bypass the city,” Trehubov said in a WhatsApp message.

Ukraine’s army is under severe strain along parts of the approximately 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, especially in the eastern Donetsk region where Pokrovsk is located.

After almost three years of war, Ukrainian units are depleted and are outnumbered by Russian forces. Though its battlefield progress has been slow and costly, momentum in the war is in Russia’s favor and its onslaught has gradually swallowed up towns and villages, especially in Donetsk. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed Monday its forces had seized the village of Pishchane.

In his daily video address to the nation late Sunday, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said fighting around Pokrovsk was “the most intense” in recent days.

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In separate comments to local medida, Trehubov, the army spokesperson, speculated that Russia’s heavy losses of troops and armor in the Donetsk operation had prompted it to alter its strategy.

“Now they are acting more cautiously,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is pressing his advantage ahead of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House next week. Trump says he wants to bring a swift end to the war, though he hasn’t publicized details of his plans.

In 2022, Moscow illegally annexed the Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk regions, which make up the economically important Donbas industrial area, together with the southeastern provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. But Russian forces don’t fully control any of them.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine