Russia says its forces capture two settlements in eastern Ukraine By Reuters

MOSCOW, Reuters – Russian forces have taken control of two more settlements in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Russia’s defense ministry said on Saturday, the latest in its steady push westward.

Russian forces now control the village of Petropavlivka, located between the towns of Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, which have been focal points of fighting in the area in recent months, the ministry said in a statement.

It also noted the capture of Vremyvka, a small town in the south of Donetsk Oblast.

The ministry also said Russian forces hit Ukrainian military facilities with high-precision weapons in response to a Ukrainian attack on Russia’s southern Belgorod region with US-made ATACMS missiles.

Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports from either side of the 34-month conflict.

Statements by the Ukrainian military did not indicate that either village had changed, but referred to heavy fighting near the town of Pokrovsk.

Ukraine’s popular blog Deep State, which documents changes in the positions of both sides using open source materials, has placed both Petropavlivka and Vremivka in Russian hands.

For the second day in a row, the spokesperson of the Ukrainian army’s Khortytsa, or eastern forces group, dismissed any speculation that Russian forces had entered Pokrovsk.

“There have been no developments in Pokrovsk, everything is stable,” Victor Trehubov told the national television. “There is no enemy”.

The city is a transport hub and the site of Ukraine’s only coking coal mine, where operations were halted this week.

The Russian military, after failing to capture the capital Kiev in the weeks following its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, has since focused its efforts on capturing all of Donbas, which is made up of the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Now it occupies about 20% of the territory of Ukraine.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Army reported in its report late in the evening that the Russian forces, which are trying to penetrate the Ukrainian defense, carried out 84 attacks in the Pokrovsky sector. There were still 14 battles in the area.

The report listed a number of villages in the area that it said had come under Russian attack, including three that the Russian military said it had secured last week and another that Russia said was under its control. taken last month.