Russia said on Monday its forces had captured the village of Vovche in eastern Ukraine, the latest in a string of frontline advances Moscow has claimed in recent weeks.
The announcement came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited special forces in the border region of Kharkiv, where Moscow’s forces launched a surprise ground offensive in May but failed to make any breakthrough.
Now grinding through a third year of fighting, neither Kyiv nor Moscow has managed to swing the conflict decisively in their favour, even though Moscow’s forces have gained ground in recent months.
Moscow’s defence ministry said in a daily briefing its units had “liberated” Vovche in the eastern region of Donetsk.
The settlement lies about 16 kilometres (10 miles) northwest of Avdiivka, a factory town Russia captured in February.
Ukrainian authorities urged remaining residents to evacuate from Vovche last month amid Russian air strikes.
Only seven people were left in the village out of a pre-conflict population of around 100.
Industrial Donetsk has borne the brunt of fighting between Ukrainian troops and invading Russian forces.
It has been partially controlled by Kremlin-supported separatists since 2014.
‘Counting on you’
The Kremlin claimed to have annexed it and three other Ukrainian territories late in 2022 despite not fully controlling them.
Ukraine’s head of the Donetsk region Vadym Filashkin said Russian forces had killed three people and wounded three more on Monday in the town of Toretsk, which is under Kyiv’s control.
Russian forces also detained 25 people in parts of Ukraine they control for allegedly supporting and “aiding” Kyiv, Russia’s National Guard said.
The arrests were made in Ukraine’s Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, large swathes of which Moscow captured after it launched its full-scale assault on the country in February 2022.
