View of damage after an airstrike in Kupyansk, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, on August 28, 2024. | Photo credit: Reuters
Russia said on Thursday (August 29, 2024) that it had seized two more villages in eastern Ukraine – in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions – as its forces continue to advance deep into the country.
The Defence Ministry said Russian forces had captured the village of Mykolaivka, about 15 kilometres from the town of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, as well as the Stelmakhivka settlement in the neighbouring Luhansk region.
Russian forces have been advancing steadily and inexorably in recent months toward the logistics hub of Pokrovsk – once home to around 60,000 people.
The outnumbered Ukrainian army is struggling to contain its attacks while awaiting Western military aid.
Kiev launched a surprise ground assault on the Russian border region of Kursk earlier this month, hoping to draw Moscow’s forces away from Donetsk.
However, Russian forces have concentrated their firepower on the industrial Donetsk region and are advancing in Kursk despite Ukrainian attacks.
Meanwhile, Russian shelling in Nikopol in southern Ukraine killed one person and injured five others, regional officials said.
“A shopping centre, various high-rise buildings, residential buildings, cars and a gas pipeline were damaged,” Sergey Lysak, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, wrote on social media.
Kiev also said on Thursday (August 29, 2024) that Russia had fired 74 attack drones and five missiles at targets in Ukraine, but air defense systems shot down most of the missiles.
The overnight bombing was the third night of heavy bombing by Russia this week, killing at least 11 people.
AFP journalists in the capital heard the sound of air raid sirens in Kiev and at least one explosion during the attacks.
Officials in the capital and surrounding areas said several private homes were damaged, but there were no reports of casualties in the airstrike.
Officials in the central Ukrainian city of Cherkasy said the attack caused a fire covering an area of about 3,000 square metres, which dozens of emergency service workers were trying to extinguish.
The Air Force said its units shot down two missiles and 60 Iranian-designed attack drones. Several drones crashed.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said for the first time this week that Western-made F-16s had been used to counter drone and missile attacks.