16.05.2025 11:05
The Russian Ministry of Defense announced that it has captured two more settlements during its advances in Eastern Ukraine. However, Ukraine did not accept this situation. A senior Ukrainian commander stated that clashes are ongoing along the 1,100 km front line.
The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Thursday that its forces had captured two more settlements during their advances in eastern Ukraine. However, Kiev did not accept this situation, and Ukraine's top commander stated that fighting continued along the 1,100 km front line.
Fighting on the front continued as direct talks between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators were expected to begin in Turkey.
These talks will be the first direct negotiations between the parties since March 2022, but hopes for a breakthrough remained limited due to Kremlin leader Putin's disregard for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's call for talks.
U.S. President Donald Trump stated on Thursday that progress towards peace could not be made without a meeting between him and Putin.
The Russian Ministry of Defense reported that Moscow's forces had captured the village of Novooleksandrivka near Pokrovsk, a logistics center they had targeted for months but had not been able to seize.
The ministry also announced that they had captured Torske, located near Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, two other cities that Moscow aims to capture in the long term.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Army listed Novooleksandrivka as one of more than a dozen settlements that came under Russian attack in a report released late in the evening. The General Staff did not mention Torske, but the popular blog DeepState reported that Russian forces attempted to capture the settlement but were repelled.
Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports from either side. Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, currently holds about one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.
Ukraine's top military commander Oleksandr Syrskiy stated that Kiev wants a "just peace," but that "active fighting continues along the approximately 1,100 km (680 miles) long front line."
Syrskiy noted in a presentation about the Ukraine-NATO Council meeting on Telegram that Russia has "turned its aggression against Ukraine into a war of attrition and is using up to 640,000 military forces."
After a failed assault on Ukraine's capital Kiev in the first weeks of the invasion, Russian forces concentrated their efforts on the Donbas, consisting of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
They have been advancing village by village for several months, but Ukrainian forces have achieved some success in preventing progress, particularly around Pokrovsk.