Russia on Friday claimed that its forces have captured three villages in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions, reclaiming areas that Kyiv had retaken three years earlier during a surprise counteroffensive.According to Moscow’s military command, the seized villages include Pishchane and Tykhe in Kharkiv and Pryvillia in Dnipropetrovsk. The Russian army continues its slow, costly advance across eastern Ukraine, engaging in fierce battles for small, war-torn settlements left largely deserted since the conflict began in February 2022.
This assault came just hours after President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump spoke by phone and agreed to hold a new summit. Trump also met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday amid renewed efforts to end the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.Ukraine had regained control of much of the Kharkiv region, including Pishchane, in its rapid autumn 2022 campaign — a breakthrough that prompted Russia’s first military draft since World War II.However, Russian forces are gradually pushing forward again, seeking to encircle Kupiansk, a key logistics hub and one of Kyiv’s major gains from that counteroffensive. The prolonged offensive has claimed tens of thousands of lives and devastated much of eastern Ukraine, displacing millions of civilians. On Friday, authorities in the Russian-occupied Kherson region said Kyiv’s shelling killed two adults and a 10-year-old child in a residential area. Ukrainian officials, meanwhile, reported that one person died and 14 others were wounded by Russian shelling in the part of Kherson still under Ukrainian control. “Two adults and a 10-year-old child were killed during intense shelling of a residential area by Kyiv in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Kherson region,” the Moscow-installed governor said.Moscow also launched a wave of drone attacks overnight, deploying around 70 drones across Ukraine. Russia said it intercepted 61 Ukrainian drones, primarily over its western regions and occupied Crimea.
