On Sunday, Russia announced that it had captured two additional settlements in eastern Ukraine, specifically in the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions. The settlements named were Piddubne in Donetsk and Sobolivka in Kharkiv.
Ukrainian officials did not provide an immediate response to these claims. Over the past year, Moscow has steadily advanced along the front lines, taking advantage of what it describes as overstretched and outmanned Ukrainian forces.
The village of Piddubne, which had a pre-war population of approximately 500 residents, is located just seven kilometers (about four miles) from the border of Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region. In contrast, Sobolivka is situated roughly three kilometers (two miles) west of the town of Kupiansk, in areas that Russia claims to control, according to battlefield maps maintained by the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
In separate posts on Telegram, the Russian Ministry of Defense stated that its military units had “liberated” the villages of Piddubne and Sobolivka, using Russian orthography for both locations.
Notably, Russia’s military has intensified its territorial advances for the third consecutive month as of June, marking the most significant territorial gains since November of the previous year, as indicated by an AFP analysis of ISW data.
