MOSCOW: Russian forces have taken over the village of Novobakhmutivka in Ukraine's Donetsk region, close to Ocheretyne, which has become a focal point of fighting in recent days, the Interfax news agency cited Russia's defence ministry as saying
Russian forces also repelled a series of Ukrainian counter-attacks near Chasiv Yar, the ministry said, another key point in the region where the sides have clashed repeatedly.
Fighting in eastern Ukraine has worsened, with Kyiv's troops falling back to new positions in at least three places along the front, Ukraine's top general said on Sunday.
Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Telegram that his troops had taken up new positions west of the villages of Berdychi, Semenivka and Novomykhailivka in order to conserve their forces.
Meanwhile, Russian officials threatened the West on Sunday with a "severe" response in the event that frozen Russian assets are confiscated, promising "endless" legal challenges and tit-for-tat measures.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia would never cede territories seized from Ukraine in exchange for the return of frozen assets.
"Our motherland is not for sale," Zakharova wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
"An Russian assets must remain untouched because otherwise there will be a severe response to Western thievery. Many in the West have already understood this. Alas, not everyone."
In response to Russia's war in Ukraine, the United States and its allies prohibited transactions with Russia's central bank and finance ministry and blocked about $300 billion of sovereign Russian assets in the West, most of which are in European not American financial institutions.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a separate comment that there was still a lot of Western money in Russia which could be targeted by Moscow's counter-measures.
"The prospects for legal challenges (against the confiscation of Russian assets) will be wide open," he said. "Russia will take advantage of those and will endlessly defend its interests."
Russia's air defence systems destroyed 17 drones launched by Ukraine over its territory, Russia's defence ministry said on Sunday, with a regional official saying the attack targeted an oil storage facility in the Kaluga region.
The defence ministry said on the Telegram messaging app that three of the Ukraine-launched drones were downed over the Kaluga region, south of Moscow.
Vladislav Shapsha, regional governor of Kaluga, said the drones fell near an oil depot near the town of Lyudinovo.
The Russian defence ministry also said nine of the Ukraine-launched drones were destroyed over the Bryansk region, three over the Kursk region and two over the Belgorod region. — AFP
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