Russia announced new field gains on the battlefront, as it took control of two additional villages in eastern Ukraine, continuing its slow advance that it began months ago.

The Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday that Russian forces took control of Myasogarivka in the Lugansk region (east) and Timkivka in the Kharkiv region (northeast), which are two small villages located on the front.

Indicating the slow but steady progress of Russian units that have been fighting on the front for months, Russia announced yesterday its control of the village of Staromayorsky in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

"Huge losses"

In this area, where most of the fighting is concentrated, soldiers interviewed by AFP on Sunday described the situation as “difficult” and frustrating in the face of daily attacks.

Russian forces launched an attack on May 10 on the Kharkiv region (northeast) and were able to control many villages before reinforcements sent by Ukraine slowed it down.

While Kiev also fears a new attack in the neighboring Sumy region, where a Russian incursion was detected on Monday.

New strikes on Kharkiv

In this regard, Zelensky denied that Russia had taken control of the village of Rizhevka in the eastern Sumy region, where the leader of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, reported the advance of Russian forces.

The advance of Russian soldiers in this border area would increase the stress of the Ukrainian military regime, which must defend a front extending more than a thousand kilometers.

Zelensky also confirmed that Ukrainian forces are in “complete control” of Sumy and that Russian sabotage groups active in the region have been “destroyed.”

The Sumy region is located on the northern border of Ukraine and has not witnessed any major Russian ground attack since the start of the conflict in 2022.

For its part, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Army announced on its social media accounts yesterday that it had destroyed “Russian anti-aircraft missile systems” of the S-400 and S-300 models in the Crimean Peninsula, an information that AFP was unable to verify. From an independent source.