RUSSIA CLAIMS CAPTURING 2 FRONTLINE VILLAGES IN EASTERN UKRAINE

Russia has claimed to have captured two villages in eastern Ukraine.

The Russian defence ministry on Monday said that its forces had captured the village of Kotlyarivka in the Kharkiv region and the village of Soloviove in the Donetsk, according to AFP.

The village of Soloviove lies in the part of the Donetsk province that Russia has annexed. In 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed four captured regions of Ukraine: Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, and Donetsk. It was the largest forced absorption of territory in Europe since World War II.

The village is not far from Ocheretyne, another village that Russia claimed to have captured on Sunday, as per the report.

The Kharkiv is one of the areas where Russia focussed in the initial days of the invasion but was soon repelled by the Ukrainians. The village of Kotlyarivka is about 20 kilometers from Kupiansk, which has seen heavy artillery firing lately amid indications that Russia may soon launch a major offensive there.

In recent months, Russia has expanded its gains in the eastern part of the country. Last week, Russia claimed to have captured the village of Berdychi, which is located near the town of Avdiivka that Russia captured in March after over a year of grinding war. Last month, Russia also claimed to have captured the village of Bohdanivka near the key battleground town of Chasiv Yair in eastern Ukraine.

For several months, Ukrainian forces on the frontlines were affected by shortage of arms and ammunition as supplies from the United States dried up as ta Ukraine aid package was stuck in US Congress. The weapons shortages coupled with low morale resulted in the Ukrainian forces struggling to hold the frontline against relentless Russian assaults.

Last month, Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said that the military had withdrawn from three villages in the eastern Donetsk and was building a new line of fortifications amid fears of a new Russian offensive, according to the report.

2024-05-07T05:02:35Z dg43tfdfdgfd