As all eyes are on the emerging Israel-Iran aerial war, and as ballistic missiles fly over Middle East skies, Russian forces have made more gains in Eastern Ukraine.
"Russian forces took control of three new Ukrainian villages — Yablonovka in the northeastern Sumy region, and Koptevo and Komar in the eastern Donetsk region," the Russian Defense Ministry indicated Friday.
"The state TASS news agency cited the ministry as saying that Russian troops had captured six Ukrainian villages over the past week," Reuters also notes.
This also comes after earlier this month Russian forces expanded ground operations into a more central oblast, in an escalation and expanded offensive:
Russian forces have secured a small foothold in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region for the first time since the early weeks of the full-scale war in 2022, The New York Times reported Friday.
Small groups of Russian soldiers crossed into the Dnipropetrovsk region from the occupied Donetsk region over the past weekend, three Ukrainian officers stationed in the area told The New York Times.
A battlefield map compiled by the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War also indicates that Russia has claimed a small strip of territory inside Dnipropetrovsk.
The officers told the NYT that Russian troops have not seized any settlements and have only advanced along a few tree lines.
But the Dnipropetrovsk operation is expected to continue, as the war drags on, Russian forces likely poised to take settlements.
As of last Sunday, a Russian tank unit had reached the western border of Donetsk, and is positioned on the eastern edge of Dnipropetrovsk.
Just like with US-Iran negotiations, efforts to end the Ukraine war appear completely stalled. The Kremlin is demanding that Zelensky agree to territorial concessions to end the war, among other conditions. But this has been a non-starter for the Zelensky government, which is backed by NATO powers.
