Russia said on Friday, October 17, that it had captured three villages in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions, including areas Kyiv had retaken three years ago in a surprise counter–offensive.
The Russian army is grinding through Eastern Ukraine in costly meter–for–merer battles for small settlements, largely devastated by fighting since February 2022 and with a few inhabitants left.
On Friday, two adults and a 10–year–old child were killed during intense shelling of a residential area by Ukrainian forces in the Russian–occupied part of the Kherson region, the Moscow–installed governor said. Kyiv meanwhile claimed that one person was killed and 14 were wounded in Russian shelling in the Ukrainian–held part of the region.
Russia pounded Ukraine with 70 drones overnight, hours after President Vladimir Putin spoke to Donald Trump by phone, agreeing to hold a new summit. The Russian army said it had intercepted 61 Ukrainian drones overnight, mostly in Russia’s western regions and the occupied Crimea peninsula.
