Ukraine’s defence of the crucial city of Pokrovsk, which has held out for more than a year despite fierce Russian assaults, could be coming to an end as invading forces squeeze the resistance out.

Elsewhere, Ukraine’s troops are facing attacks along the frontline, with Moscow reportedly using a pipeline to move personnel in the northeast near Kupyansk as it seeks to create even more pressure on Kyiv’s stretched resources.

It comes after Volodymyr Zelenskyy used an exclusive interview with Sky News to call on Donald Trump to take a “clear position” on a sanctions package for Russia and security guarantees for Ukraine.

Sky News has a look at what has been happening at some key parts of the frontline.

‘Kill zone’ as around Pokrovsk

Ukrainian forces have been engaged in a bitter struggle to hold the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk for more than a year, with Russian troops at times attempting to encircle the defenders there.

The situation there is worsening, says Dr Marina Miron, an expert at the defence studies department at King’s College London.

She cited reports that Russian forces are controlling all supply routes and have “created a kill zone” using drones, making it very difficult for Ukraine to resupply its troops there.

A road and rail node, Pokrovsk had a pre-war population of around 60,000 people. It’s viewed by Russia as “the gateway to Donetsk”.

Capturing it would severely hamper Ukrainian supply lines and endanger crucial cities like Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

“It will take time because what the Russians are trying to do essentially is to squeeze the Ukrainians out,” Dr Miron told Sky News.

“They don’t want to storm the city as it’s too difficult and too manpower intensive – assuming a lot of losses.” Instead, they are trying to surround it completely, she added.

This reflects a “changed approach”, Dr Miron says, with the Russian military appearing to favour slower encirclement operations rather than the high-casualty assault waves with which places like Bakhmut were captured.

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Battles in the northeast

Meanwhile, Russian forces have advanced near Kupyansk in northeast Ukraine, not far from the fortress city of Kharkiv, the Institute for the Study of War thinktank reported on Monday.

Like other targets along the Ukrainian frontline, Kupyansk is a key transport and logistics hub, being the location at which several major rail lines converge.

“It seems like they are pretty close,” Dr Miron said, discussing the positions of Russian forces around Kupyansk.

Earlier this week, Ukraine’s military said Russia had moved personnel to the area via a pipeline, but said the exit from the pipe is under control of Ukrainian defenders.

“A counter-sabotage operation is underway in the city, and search and strike operations are underway around the city,” the Kyiv’s General Staff said on Telegram on Saturday.

Kupyansk, which was recaptured by Ukrainian troops in their counteroffensive in autumn 2022, has been largely destroyed in the course of the war and continues to face attacks.

Dr Miron said it’s likely that the push towards Kupyansk is part of an effort by Moscow to retake some of those lost territories, or perhaps an effort to seize land that it can then use as a bargaining chip in any future negotiations.

The suspect in the Madeleine McCann case celebrated his release from prison with a fast-food breakfast of chicken nuggets and a burger.

Christian B, 49, was smuggled from a jail near Hanover, hidden in the back of his lawyer’s car and managed to avoid being filmed or pictured by scores of camera operators who had been waiting for several days.

But a photographer caught up with him as he stopped briefly at a McDonald’s restaurant.

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Christian B, who cannot be fully identified under German privacy laws, stood outside and smoked a cigarette before eating his food.

Dressed in a lilac shirt, beige trousers and trainers, he ordered chicken nuggets with sweet-and-sour sauce, a burger and a hot drink.

He wore sunglasses, but they did little to disguise the distinctive features that have appeared on TV and on the front of newspapers around the world.

After 15 minutes, he left the restaurant as police blocked the street to allow him to leave freely.

He was driven off again in the black Audi saloon in which his lawyer Friedrich Fulscher had collected him an hour earlier from Sehnde prison.

It’s not known where Christian B was headed after completing an unrelated sentence for the rape of an elderly woman, or who will help him adjust to his new life of freedom.

As part of his release conditions, he’s been fitted with an electronic ankle tag, has had to surrender his passport and register his permanent address with probation officers.

Another of his lawyers, Philipp Marquort, said: “This is an attempt by the public prosecutor’s office to keep him in a kind of pre-trial detention where they would have access to him at any time. We will not accept that.”

German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters, who leads the Madeleine investigation, believes Christian B abducted and murdered the three-year-old during a family holiday in Portugal in 2007.

The suspect, who has convictions for child sex abuse, theft, drug trafficking and forgery, denies any involvement.

Explainer: The chequered history of Christian B

Madeleine vanished from her bed in a rented apartment as her parents and their friends dined nearby at the hotel complex in Praia da Luz.

Mr Wolters told Sky News he had “almost” enough evidence to charge the suspect, but could not justify arresting him and stopping him from being freed.

He said: “He is dangerous, a psychopath, and we hope he does not commit more crimes, but it is likely he will.”

He said he hadn’t ruled out the chance of charging Christian B: “At the moment, we still have lines of investigation we are pursuing, and we hope we may gain more evidence or indications.

“If that happens, our situation would of course improve, and we would prefer to go to court with that stronger position.”

Christian B, who flitted between Germany and Portugal, has served seven years for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Praia da Luz – two years before Madeleine vanished.

He is expected to appear in a German court next month to face a charge of using insulting behaviour towards a female prison warder. A conviction could put him back in jail.

He also faces a possible retrial after the prosecutor’s appeal against his acquittal last year on unrelated rape and child sex allegations.

Scotland Yard detectives, who failed to charge anyone in their own investigation, revealed this week they had asked Christian B to answer their questions, but he refused, as he has with their German and Portuguese colleagues.

His lawyers dismissed it as an illegal request because investigators had shared none of the prosecution files with him.

According to the prosecutor, the evidence against Christian B in the Madeleine case is circumstantial; his mobile phone was nearby her apartment at the time she vanished, he was a convicted child sex abuser, he had allegedly confessed to a friend, and he had re-registered his car the day after.

There is no forensic evidence to link the suspect to the abduction – and after 18 years, the chances of finding it must be remote.

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German criminal profiler Mark T Hofmann told Sky News: “I’m a big believer in second chances, but I’m not that much of a big believer in tenth chances.

“So if you commit a crime, and you do it again and again and again and again, then you need to ask yourself like, why should we believe that he will stop now?

“I wish, and I hope that also he realises that he can maybe now live a different life anonymously in some place, and hopefully stop committing crimes.”

Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann, from Leicestershire, cling to the hope their daughter might still be found alive, in the absence of any evidence they are aware of to show she is dead.

At least 16 people are said to have died overnight in Israeli attacks in Gaza – as the first group of 10 children arrived in the UK for urgent NHS treatment.

Officials said more than half of those killed in the latest attacks were in Gaza City, where Israel this week began a major ground offensive.

A mother and her child died at an apartment in the city’s Shati refugee camp, according to the Shifa hospital.

The al-Adwa and Nasser hospitals said other victims included a pregnant woman – among three killed when a house was hit in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza – and two parents and their child in the Muwasi area west of Khan Younis.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) launched its ground assault on Tuesday, in what it called a “new phase” in its bid to destroy Hamas and force the release of the remaining hostages.

It said it was looking into the deaths caused by the latest strikes.

Troops and tanks continued to push deeper into Gaza City on Wednesday despite widespread condemnation of the attempt to take full control of the city.

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has called the operation “utterly reckless and appalling”.

Ms Cooper – who last night helped greet the pro-Israel President Trump – said it would “only bring more bloodshed, kill more innocent civilians & endanger the remaining hostages”.

Meanwhile, 10 critically ill and injured children from Gaza have arrived in Britain for medical care alongside 50 companions, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday.

It said they were first evacuated to Jordan and that “robust” security checks were undertaken before the group got approval to travel.

The foreign secretary said the children were “unable to get the medical care they need to survive” in Gaza.

More are expected to arrive in the coming weeks, in what Health Secretary Wes Streeting said “reflects the very best of our NHS values – compassion, care and expertise when it matters most”.

A small number of children were previously brought to the UK and are being treated privately through the Project Pure Hope initiative.

It comes as a coalition of aid groups today urged the international community to do more to stop Israel’s attacks, which it said had caused “an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe”.

“States must use every available political, economic, and legal tool at their disposal to intervene. Rhetoric and half measures are not enough. This moment demands decisive action,” said a statement signed by the heads of more than 20 organisations working in Gaza.

The call comes a day after a UN commission said Israel was committing genocide in Gaza – a claim the country vehemently denies as “distorted and false”.

Sky News analysis shows thousands of families remain in crowded tent camps in Gaza City, with the UN estimating last week that a million people remain there. Israel, however, believes 40% of the population has already fled south.

Many are taking what little they can and attempting the perilous journey south after Israel warned them to evacuate ahead of it new offensive.

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The IDF said another route south for those fleeing would open from noon local time on Wednesday, running along Salah al-Din street along Gaza’s coastline, for two days.

Israel has not said how long its Gaza City operation will last, but that it will involve both air and ground forces and the number of soldiers will increase over the coming days.

It insists it takes strenuous efforts to issue warnings and avoid civilian casualties, but that it’s complicated by Hamas deliberately embedding itself in civilian areas.

Health officials in Gaza say nearly 65,000 people have died in the two years of the war – a figure that does not specify the number of Hamas members killed.

The terror attack on Israel in October 2023 killed around 1,200 and saw 251 taken hostage. Forty-eight remain in Gaza, but fewer then half are though to still be alive.