Russia’s forces have captured their first village in Ukraine’s east-central Dnipropetrovsk region, Russian state media and military bloggers reported on Monday, following Moscow’s seizure of 950 square kilometres of territory over the past two months.
There was no immediate confirmation from Ukrainian sources or from the Russian Defence Ministry.
As Moscow and Kyiv talk of possible peace, the war has intensified with Russian forces carving out a 200 square kilometre (77.22 square miles) chunk of Ukraine’s Sumy region and entering the Dnipropetrovsk region last month.
The authoritative Ukrainian Deep State map shows that Russia now controls 113,588 square kms of Ukrainian territory, up 943 square km over the two months to June 28.
Russia’s state RIA news agency quoted a pro-Russian official, Vladimir Rogov, as saying that Russian forces had taken control of the village of Dachnoye just inside the Dnipropetrovsk region.
Russia has said it is willing to make peace but that Ukraine must withdraw from the entirety of the four regions, which Russia mostly controls and which President Vladimir Putin says are now legally part of Russia.
Ukraine and its European backers say those terms are tantamount to capitulation and that Russia is not interested in peace, and that they will never accept Russian control of a fifth of Ukraine.
The areas under Russian control include Crimea, more than 99% of the Luhansk region, over 70% of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, all in the east or southeast, and fragments of the Kharkiv, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
Industrialised Region
Russian forces moved quickly through the heavily industrialised Luhansk region in the months following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but small slivers of territory had remained under Ukrainian control.
In Donetsk region, Russian news agencies said Ukrainian forces had attacked the main city, also known as Donetsk, with missiles, damaging several buildings, setting a market ablaze and killing at least one person. Pictures posted on Ukrainian military websites showed explosions in Donetsk.
(With inputs from Reuters)
