MOSCOW—Russian forces captured the Ukrainian town of Ukrainsk in the eastern Donetsk region on Tuesday as they advanced westwards in a bid to take the whole of the Donbas, Russian state-run RIA news agency and pro-Russian war bloggers reported.
Russian troops raised their flag on a mine ventilation shaft on the outskirts of the town, which had a population of over 10,000 people before the war, RIA said, citing an unidentified source in the Russian military.
“Ukrainsk is ours,” said Yuri Podolyaka, an Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger, adding that Russian forces had taken the city “almost intact” allowing them to use it as a base for further offensive operations.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s military, in a late evening report, said nothing about Ukrainsk changing hands, referring to it as one of several localities under Russian attack. It said 34 assaults had been recorded near the town of Pokrovsk.
Reuters was unable to immediately verify battlefield claims from either side due to reporting restrictions in the war zone.
Russian forces had encircled Ukrainsk earlier this month as they advanced westwards towards Pokrovsk, part of what President Vladimir Putin says is a primary goal to take all of the Donbas region, an area about half the size of the U.S. state of Ohio.
Podolyaka said that Hirnyk, a town to the south with a pre-war population of over 10,000, and Selydove, a town to the north with a pre-war population of over 20,000, were the next targets.
Since Russia sent its army into Ukraine in February 2022, the war has largely been a story of grinding artillery and drone strikes along a heavily fortified 1,000-km (620-mile) front involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
Russian Advance
Russia in August advanced at its fastest monthly pace in two years, according to open source maps.
Russian forces, which have taken about a fifth of Ukraine, control 98.5 percent of the Luhansk region and 60 percent of the Donetsk region, according to the same sources.
Together, the two regions make up the Donbas, which is the cradle of the war.
Russia said on Tuesday it had repelled five new attempts by Ukrainian forces to smash through its border into the Kursk region, bringing the total number of reported attacks on the border to 26 in just the past six days.
Ukrainian Drone Attack
A large-scale Ukrainian drone attack on Russia triggered an earthquake-sized blast at a major arsenal in the Tver region on Wednesday, forcing the evacuation of a nearby town, war bloggers and some media reported.
Unverified video and images on social media showed a huge ball of flame blasting high into the night sky and multiple detonations thundering across a lake about 380 km (240 miles) west of Moscow.
NASA satellites picked up intense heat sources emanating from an area of about 14 square kilometres (5 square miles) at the site in the early hours and earthquake monitoring stations picked up what sensors thought was a small earthquake in the area.
“The enemy hit an ammunition depot in the area of Toropets,” said Yuri Podolyaka, a Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger.
Igor Rudenya, the governor of the Tver region, said that Ukrainian drones had been shot down, that a fire had broken out and that some residents were being evacuated. He did not say what was burning.
Rudenya later said the situation in Toropets was stable as of midday local time (0900 GMT) and that evacuated residents could return. The fire had been put out and there were no recorded fatalities, he said.