Russia said on Tuesday that its army had seized a new village in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, accelerating its claimed advance into the key industrial area.
On Tuesday, Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had captured another village in the region, Sichneve, as “a result of active and decisive actions.”
Kyiv has been trying to repel a fresh Russian offensive as U.S. President Donald Trump’s Friday deadline for Moscow to make progress towards peace nears.
Dnipropetrovsk is not one of the five Ukrainian regions—Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea—that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory.
In a set of demands issued to Ukraine during talks in Istanbul that failed to yield a breakthrough, Moscow demanded formal recognition that these regions were part of Russia.
Kyiv has repeatedly ruled that out.
On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed he wanted a “lasting and stable peace” in Ukraine but added that Moscow’s condition for peace remained unchanged.
