The Russian military announces that the small community of Pisjtjane has been "liberated" when summarizing the war development on Monday morning. In these reports, only positive news about the Russian army's actions is usually provided.
Analysts who closely follow the war development assessed early on Monday that at least part of the community was under Russian control.
Pisjtjane is located near the raging frontline in Donetsk in southeastern Ukraine, less than a mile southeast of Pokrovsk. The Russian invasion forces have been on the offensive in the east in recent months, targeting both Pokrovsk and another small town further south, Kurachove. The latter fell into Russian hands about a week ago.
In December, the Ukrainian steel and mining giant Metinvest announced that it was forced to stop all operations at its mine in Pisjtjane and evacuate personnel from there. In this mine, the company extracts about half of all the coal it mines in Ukraine.
