POKROVSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — A dire shortage of infantry troops and supply routes coming under Russian drone attacks are conspiring against Ukrainian forces in Pokrovsk, where decisive battles in the nearly three-year war are playing out — and time is running short.

The deputy governor of a Russian region has been killed fighting in Ukraine, becoming the highest-ranking Russian official to die in the war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that excluding his country from talks between the U.S. and Russia about the war in Ukraine would be “very dangerous.”