Russia claims new villages in eastern Ukraine

Russia on Jan 12 claimed the capture of two villages in eastern Ukraine where its forces have been steadily advancing for months.

The defense ministry said the southern group of forces had captured the village of Yantarne in the eastern Donetsk region, around 10km south-west of Kurakhove, a key logistics hub that Moscow claimed to have seized last week.

On Jan 11, Russia’s army said it had also taken new territory north-west of Kurakhove.

The defense ministry said on Jan 12 that Russian troops had also captured the village of Kalinove in the north-eastern Kharkiv region.

The village is on the western bank of the Oskil River, which for a long time formed the front line between the two armies in the region.

But a Ukrainian official said on Jan 9 that Russian forces had managed to establish a bridgehead on the western bank after crossing the river.

Russia’s army has spent months making attempts to cross the river, which also cuts through Kupiansk, a city recaptured by Ukraine in its 2022 counteroffensive.

The Ukrainian air force for its part said it had shot down 60 Russian drones overnight from Jan 11 to 12.

Falling drone fragments damaged houses in the Kharkiv, Sumy and Poltava regions but no one was hurt, the air force said.

In the southern Kherson region, three people were injured by drones on Jan 12, the regional authorities said.

In the Russian-controlled section of the Kherson region, a Ukrainian drone attacked a car, killing a 76-year-old woman outside her house, Russian-installed Governor Vladimir Saldo said on Telegram.

In the Russian city of Engels on the Volga River, a fire caused by a Ukrainian drone strike on Jan 8 on an oil depot continued to burn out, Saratov Governor Roman Busargin said on Telegram.

Firefighters are working “24 hours a day” to extinguish the fire, Mr Busargin said, and the “amount of smoke and the total area of the fire is decreasing”.