Russia announced that it has captured two more villages in Eastern Ukraine, TASS reported, quoted by BTA.
This is the latest announcement of its kind. Russia regularly announces that it has captured villages in Eastern Ukraine, but the war as a whole remains positional - nearly four and a half years after its beginning.
The Russian Federation's Defense Ministry announced today the "liberation" of the Andreyevsk municipality in Donetsk region and Novosoloshyn in neighboring Zaporizhzhia region. Moscow has declared these two Ukrainian regions annexed, along with Luhansk and Kherson regions, but does not fully control them.
This news has not been independently verified. There has been no reaction from the Ukrainian side so far.
Andreievsky municipality is located in Kramatorsk district, on the main road between the cities of Dobropilya and Kramatorsk. It is 28 kilometers by road from Kramatorsk - the largest city in Donetsk region, which remains under Ukrainian control.
Otherwise, Russia has captured over 80% of this Ukrainian region. Russian armed forces are located a few kilometers from the so-called fortress cities in Donetsk region Kramatorsk, Slavyansk and Druzhkovka.
Novosoloshino is located in Orekhovsky district, in the northern part of Zaporizhia region. According to various estimates, Russia controls between 70% and 80% of this region in southeastern Ukraine.
The two villages that Russia announced it had captured were not mentioned at all in the regular report published on Facebook by the General Staff (GS) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) this morning and cited by Ukrinform.
The GFSU recorded a total of 236 battles yesterday. According to him, the situation was most tense in the Pokrovskoye, Konstantinovo and Slavyanskoye directions in the Donetsk region.
Russia attacked Ukraine with 128 drones at night, with Ukrainian air defenses neutralizing 106 of them, the Ukrainian Air Force reported earlier in the day on Telegram, quoted by Ukrinform.
Russian forces launched a total of 128 combat drones at 6:00 p.m. local (and Bulgarian) time last night, including drones of the "Shahed", "Gerbera" and decoy drones "Parody". They were launched from the Kursk and Oryol regions, the city of Primorsko-Akhtarsk, as well as from the temporarily occupied Donetsk region.
According to preliminary information as of 08:30 this morning, Ukrainian forces had shot down or neutralized 106 drones over northern, southern and eastern Ukraine. Several enemy drones are still in Ukrainian airspace, the Air Force said.
Direct hits were detected at 14 locations, and debris from downed drones fell in two places.