Russian forces have advanced further into several towns in eastern Ukraine, moving closer to capturing the strategic city of Pokrovsk, Russian and Ukrainian bloggers said, Reuters reports.
"The enemy has advanced in Selidovo," DeepState, a group with close ties to the Ukrainian military that analyzes combat footage, wrote on the Telegram messaging app late Saturday.
They posted a map showing Russian troops in the southeast of the city.
Russian forces stormed the mining town of Selidove in Ukraine's Donetsk region last Sunday.
The capture would open the way for a Russian advance on the logistics hub of Pokrovsk, 20 kilometers to the northwest.
The Russian news agency SHOT announced on Telegram that Moscow troops control 80 percent of Selidova.
Russian head of the Donetsk region Denis Pushilin said that Russian forces placed the flag of their unit on the roof of one of the buildings in the town of Hirnik, some 14 kilometers south of Selidova, Russian state news agency RIA reported.
Russian military bloggers have also reported that Russian forces are close to taking over the town of Kurahovo, southwest of Hirnik.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports. Ukraine did not comment on them.
Ukraine's armed forces said in an evening report on Saturday that Kiev forces had repulsed 36 Russian attacks along the Pokrovsk front line the previous day, including in the Selidove area, while several battles were still ongoing.
Reuters reports that after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022, failed to capture the capital Kiev and win a decisive victory, Russian President Vladimir Putin scaled back his war ambitions and decided to seize the old industrial heartland in eastern Ukraine known as Donbass, which covers Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
Russian forces advanced there last month at their fastest pace since March 2022, according to one source, despite Ukraine seizing part of Russia's Kursk region.
Russia claims to have captured Izmailovka, Ukraine to have shot down drones
The Ministry of Defense of Russia announced that Russian forces have taken control of the village of Izmailovka in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, the Russian state news agency RIA reported today, Reuters reports.
Reuters said it could not immediately verify reports from the battlefield.
Beta Agency reports that the Ministry of Defense of Russia announced that the Russian army "liberated the village of Izmailovka" in the east of Ukraine and that this morning it announced that 51 Ukrainian drones were shot down over Russian territory during the night.
Eighteen drones were intercepted in the area of the village of Tambov, about 400 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, and 16 in the sector of the border city of Belgorod, the ministry specified in a statement via the Telegram network.
Other drones were shot down in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops have been conducting a ground offensive since August and control several hundred square kilometers of Russian territory.
Russia reports almost daily that it has destroyed Ukrainian drones sent to its territory. Kiev announces that it carries out these strikes, which are often aimed at energy sites, in response to the Russian bombing of Ukrainian territory.
The Ukrainian army, as reported by Reuters, announced that its air defenses shot down 41 of the 80 Russian drones that were launched during the night.
Ukraine's air force said it had lost track of 32 drones, but gave no further details.
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