MOSCOW: Russia said on Tuesday it had captured two more villages in eastern Ukraine, in the latest in a string of gains for Moscow on the battlefield.
Russian forces have advanced in Ukraine for weeks and the fall of the villages comes days before an international summit on Ukraine.
Moscow's defence ministry said Russian forces took Timkovka in the northeastern Kharkiv region and Miasozharivka, calling it by its Russian name of Artemovka, in the eastern Lugansk region. Timkovka lies near Kupyansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
Russia launched a fresh offensive in the Kharkiv region in May. Miasozharivka lies in the north of the Lugansk region, which Russia has claimed to have annexed, near the border with the Kharkiv region.
Russia has made the gains in Ukraine this spring and early summer as Kyiv's forces have struggled with a lack of men and ammunition.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday pleaded for more air defence help to stop Russian attacks as he began an intense week of diplomatic meetings with Western partners.
"Russia's greatest strategic advantage over Ukraine is superiority in the sky. It is missile and bomb that helps Russian troops advance on the ground," Zelensky told a reconstruction conference in Berlin.
"Air defence is the answer," he said.
Zelensky, who is also due to address the German parliament, will join the heads of the G7 developed nations later this week in Italy.
He then heads to Switzerland for peace talks over the weekend on the war in Ukraine. Russia has not been invited.
Opening the Berlin conference, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also urged allies to provide more air defence for Ukraine.
"I would like to make a heartfelt plea to everyone here today: please support our initiative to strengthen Ukraine's air defence with everything that is possible," Scholz told delegates.
"The best reconstruction is the one that doesn't have to take place at all," he said.
Germany has contributed three Patriot air defence systems to Kyiv, while Zelensky said a total of seven Patriots are needed for Ukraine to shield its urban centres from the storm of Russian missiles.
"You can understand why we are fighting so hard against Russia's attempts to divide us, to divide Ukraine. Why we are doing absolutely everything to prevent a wall between parts of our country," Zelensky told German lawmakers. Russian aerial attacks had already destroyed half of the country's electricity production since winter, according to Zelensky. — AFP
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