The Russian army Monday claimed to have captured another village in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, moving deeper into Ukrainian territory as peace efforts stall.
Russian forces are slowly but steadily gaining ground in costly battles for largely devastated areas in eastern and central Ukraine, normally with few inhabitants or intact buildings left.
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had seized the settlement of Zaporizke in the region, which Russian troops recently advanced into for the first time in the three-and-a-half-year offensive.
Kyiv denies that Russian troops have gained a foothold in the Dnipropetrovsk region, an important industrial hub.
After another push by US President Donald Trump to broker a Ukraine-Russia summit, hopes for peace dimmed when Russia last week ruled out any immediate meeting between presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky.
The central region of Dnipropetrovsk has previously been largely spared from fighting that has ravaged swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine, until Russia said its forces broke through in July.
Dnipropetrovsk is not one of the five Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea — that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory.
Ukraine said Russia had launched over 100 drones Monday, killing a 37-year old civilian driver and wounding two people in the northeastern Sumy region.
Moscow said Kyiv had launched about two dozen drones targeting western Russia.
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© Agence France-Presse
