Russia said Monday its troops had captured three more villages in Ukraine, with Moscow trying to press its advantage on the battlefield amid stalled peace efforts.
Moscow’s defence ministry said in a social media statement that its forces had seized the settlements of Novomykolaivka and Pryvilne in Zaporizhzhia region, and Yegorivka in Dnipropetrovsk region.Russia claims the southern Zaporizhzhia region as its own, though has made no formal claim over the Dnipropetrovsk region, which its troops pushed into for the first time earlier this year.Though it holds an advantage in manpower and weapons on the sprawling front, Russia’s territorial advances have been slow and costly.
Over the last year, its army has captured around 6,000 square kilometres, or one percent of Ukraine’s territory, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which works with the Critical Threats Project.Ukraine’s army said over the weekend that around 200 Russian troops had entered the city of Pokrovsk, which Moscow has been trying to encircle and capture for months.Russia has “concentrated their main attack force” around the city, creating a “difficult” situation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday.
Russia is also targeting Kupiansk, a strategically important city in the northeastern Kharkiv region.After a diplomatic flurry this year and the first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in more than three years, efforts to end the war have frozen with little sign of progress.
US President Donald Trump last week scrapped a planned summit with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and hit Moscow with his first significant sanctions package, targeting two top oil companies, after saying he was frustrated that Russia had not halted its offensive.
Putin due to meet North Korea foreign minister in MoscowVladimir Putin will later Monday host North Korea’s top diplomat in the Kremlin, the Russian president’s spokesman said, as the two sides deepen military and political ties amid the war in Ukraine.
Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui earlier hailed the “spiritual closeness between Pyongyang and Moscow” in a meeting with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov during her visit to the Russian capital.Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last year inked a mutual defence pact, while Pyongyang despatched thousands of troops to help Moscow’s army fight off Ukrainian troops in the western Kursk region.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin would host Choe, but provided no details on what the pair would discuss.The visit is the latest in a flurry of diplomatic exchanges between the two countries and comes just days after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledged to advance military ties with Moscow.
