Russian forces have seized control of another eastern Ukrainian settlement, Moscow said on Sunday, in what would be the latest in a string of gains in the Donetsk region if confirmed.
The Kremlin said on Sunday that its Center group of forces had captured the Donetsk village of Mykhailivka.
Several settlements in Ukraine bear the same name, and Russia’s Defense Ministry statement is likely referring to the village immediately east of Selydove, southeast of the strategic Ukrainian-held hub of Pokrovsk where Moscow has been concentrating its efforts.
Newsweek has reached out to the Ukrainian military for comment.
Popular Ukrainian war-tracking blog, DeepState, showed the vast majority of Mykhailivka to be under Russian control as of Sunday.
A Ukrainian tank in the Donetsk region on Wednesday, September 18, 2024. Russian forces have seized control of another eastern Ukrainian settlement, Moscow said on Sunday, in what would be the latest in a string of gains in Donetsk if confirmed.
AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka
More than two and a half years into the full-scale war, Moscow has kept up the pressure on Ukrainian defenses in the east. Kyiv has consistently reported the heaviest fighting to be along the chunks of the front line running through Donetsk, which, along with the neighboring Luhansk region, makes up the industrial heartland referred to as the Donbas.
But fighting has blazed on in the northeastern Kharkiv region of Ukraine since Moscow launched its cross-border offensive in May, and Russia has spent months attempting to fend off Kyiv’s operations in its border Kursk region since its western neighbor launched a surprise incursion into the territory in early August.
Ukraine’s armed forces have also sounded the alarm over “new assault operations” in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.
Russia has battled to move west of the decimated city of Bakhmut since capturing it in May 2023, and west of Avdiivka since the former Ukrainian stronghold fell in February this year.
Since the late winter earlier this year, Moscow has claimed a string of settlements west of Avdiivka towards Pokrovsk. The latter has been referred to as a “fortress” settlement, key to Ukrainian defenses preventing Russia’s advance west of the Donetsk region.
Ukraine’s military said early on Sunday that its forces had stopped 36 Russian attacks around Pokrovsk over the previous 24 hours, including around Mykhailivka and Selydove.
Russian forces did not make any confirmed advances along the Pokrovsk part of the front line on Saturday, according to the latest analysis from the U.S.-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War.
Separately on Sunday, Russian state news agency Tass reported that Ukrainian forces have started a “partial withdrawal” from the key city of Toretsk, east of Pokrovsk and to the southwest of Bakhmut. The Ukrainian military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
