Russia announced on Saturday that its forces had captured a new village in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region called Novomykolaivka.
According to the Russian Defence Ministry, troops first reached the village at the beginning of July.
The village is located near the border with the Donetsk region, a hotspot in the ongoing conflict.
However, the claim could not be independently verified. AFP reported that it was unable to confirm Russia’s claim, and the online battlefield map DeepState, maintained by Ukrainian military analysts, indicated that the village remains under Kyiv’s control.
Russian Advances Amid Continued Conflict
Russian forces, better equipped and significantly outnumbering Ukrainian troops, have been conducting offensives in eastern Ukraine for months.
At the end of August, Ukraine acknowledged that Russian soldiers had entered the Dnipropetrovsk region for the first time, following Moscow’s earlier claims of advances.
Currently, the Russian military controls about one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory.
The Kremlin continues to demand that Ukraine withdraw from its eastern Donbas region as a precondition for halting hostilities, a demand Kyiv has firmly rejected.
While the Dnipropetrovsk region is not among the five Ukrainian regions, Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Crimea that Russia claims as its territory, the area remains a strategic front in the conflict.
Rising Tensions and Civilian Casualties
On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of aiming to “occupy all of Ukraine,” saying that Moscow would not stop even if Kyiv agreed to cede territory.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin noted that peace negotiations with Kyiv remain on “pause” following repeated failed attempts at diplomatic resolution.
Earlier Saturday, Russian shelling of Kostyantynivka in Donetsk region killed three civilians, according to regional prosecutors.