On Sunday, Russia announced the capture of two additional settlements in eastern Ukraine, one located in the Donetsk region and the other in the Kharkiv region.
Ukraine has yet to respond to the assertions made by Russia.
Moscow has been steadily advancing on the front line for more than a year, leveraging its advantages against Ukrainian forces that are stretched thin and outnumbered.
On Sunday, Russian officials announced the capture of the village of Piddubne in Donetsk and Sobolivka in Kharkiv.
Piddubne, a settlement that once housed approximately 500 residents, is situated a mere seven kilometres (four miles) from the border of Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region.
Sobolivka village is situated approximately three kilometres (two miles) west of Kupiansk, positioned outside the territories that Russia asserts it controls, according to battlefield maps from the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
The Russian Defence Ministry announced in two separate Telegram posts that its military units have “liberated” the settlements of Poddubnoye and Sobolevka, using Russian spellings for these locations.
In June, the Russian military intensified its operations, marking the third consecutive month of increased advances.
According to an analysis by AFP of data from ISW, the territorial gains recorded for that month represent the largest since November of the previous year.
