MOSCOW: Russia said on Sunday that its forces had taken full control of a town in eastern Ukraine as Moscow's forces advance on the strategically important city of Pokrovsk and seek to pierce the Ukrainian defensive front lines.
Russian forces, which control about a fifth of Ukraine since attacking in February 2022, are advancing in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to take the whole of the Donbas.
Russia's defence ministry said its forces had taken the town of Novohrodivka, which lies 12 km from Pokrovsk, an important rail and road hub for Ukrainian forces in the area. The town had a population of 14,000 before the war.
Yuri Podolyaka, an influential military blogger, published maps showing Russian forces attacking beyond Novohrodivka in at least two places less than 7 km from Pokrovsk.
President Vladimir Putin said last week that a Ukrainian incursion into the Russian region of Kursk had failed to slow Russia's own advance in eastern Ukraine and had weakened Kyiv's defences along the front line in a boost to Moscow.
Ukraine's top military commander said on Thursday that Kyiv's incursion into the Kursk region was working and that there had been no Russian advances on Pokrovsk for the previous six days.
He said that one of the objectives of the Kursk incursion was to divert Russian forces from other areas, primarily Pokrovsk and Kurakhove. Russia had diverted large numbers to Kursk, but was also strengthening the Pokrovsk front, he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the Kursk operation was also to prevent Russian forces from crossing the border in the opposite direction.
Russia currently controls about 80 per cent of Donbas. Given the speed of recent Russian advances in the east, some Russian war bloggers have raised concern about the army overreaching itself.
Putin ordered tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022 in what he calls a special military operation.
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for a renewed effort to bring peace to Ukraine, adding that he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had both agreed in recent talks on the need for a new peace conference that would include Russia. "I believe that now is the time to discuss how to arrive at peace from this state of war, indeed at a faster pace," Scholz told broadcaster ZDF in a televised interview. Zelensky said in July he aimed to have a plan ready in November to enable Kyiv to hold a second international summit on peace in Ukraine, and that representatives of Russia should attend. — Reuters
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