Russia said its forces continue to make gains around Pokrovsk as Moscow intensifies efforts to penetrate the battered Ukrainian city with local officials calling the situation difficult.
Russia's Defense Ministry said on November 12 that its forces had pushed Ukrainian troops out of Sukhyi Yar, which lies just to the south of Pokrovsk, which is key for the Kremlin's strategy of finding a stronghold to drive north toward the two biggest remaining Ukrainian-controlled cities in the Donetsk region -- Kramatorsk and Slovyansk.
Pokrovsk, a city of about 7,000 inhabitants -- down from more than 60,000 prewar -- holds crucial road and rail junctions and has been under threat of encirclement by Russian forces for most of the year.
British Back Channels
The reports of the advance, which has not been independently verified, come as the Kremlin said Britain attempted to open a back channel to resume dialogue -- first reported by the Financial Times -- over ending Europe's largest and deadliest conflict since World War II.
"There were indeed contacts," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, adding that the talks collapsed because "there was a lack of any intention or desire to listen to our position."
"Given the impossibility of exchanging views, the mutual dialogue has not developed," he said, giving no details on when the communication took place.
Earlier on November 12, state news agency TASS cited a Foreign Ministry official as saying Russia is ready to resume peace negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul.
Stalled Ukraine Peace Talks
The two sides last met in Istanbul in July for a third round of direct peace talks but failed to make any progress -- other than agreeing to a prisoner swap -- to ending a war that followed Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.
"The Russian team is ready for this, the ball is in the Ukrainian court," Aleksei Polishchuk, head of the second CIS Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, told TASS.
Moscow has previously said President Vladimir Putin would be willing to meet with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the Russian capital, a condition Kyiv has rejected.
With the peace process stalled, the United States last month sanctioned Russia's two largest oil companies as US President Donald Trump's frustration grew over Putin's refusal to end the invasion of Ukraine.
The US sanctions on Russia's energy giants came after several unsuccessful rounds of negotiations between the United States and Russia, which at one point were expected to be discussed at a summit between Trump and Putin in Budapest.
Shortly after a conversation between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Trump said he was not going "to be wasting time" meeting with Putin if the Kremlin leader was not ready to make a deal to end his war on Ukraine.
Western media had largely reported that there has been little change in Russia's stance on ending the conflict since Trump's meeting with Putin in Alaska in August, which didn't result in a cease-fire.
On November 8, Trump said he still didn't see Russia as willing to stop the fighting, though he still prefers Budapest as the venue for a peace summit once the conditions for such a meeting are met.
Moscow has also said preparation work on such a meeting must be done before any date could be set.
