View of damage in the aftermath of an airstrike in a location given as Kupyansk, in Ukraine’s Kharkiv Region on August 28, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Russia said on Thursday (August 29, 2024) that it took two more east Ukrainian villages — in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions — as its forces continue their advance deeper into the country.

The Defence Ministry said Russian forces captured the village of Mykolaivka, around 15 km from the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, as well as the settlement of Stelmakhivka in the neighbouring Lugansk region.

Russian forces have been making steady and determined advances towards the logistics hub of Pokrovsk — once home to some 60,000 people — over recent months.

Outnumbered Ukrainian forces awaiting more Western military aid have struggled to hold back their assaults.

Kyiv earlier this month launched a surprise ground assault into Russia’s border region of Kursk hoping that the offensive would draw Moscow’s Army away from Donetsk.

The Russian Army however has focused its firepower on the industrial Donetsk region and advanced despite the Ukrainian attacks in Kursk.

Russian shelling on Nikopol in southern Ukraine meanwhile killed one person and wounded five more, regional authorities said.

“A shopping centre, various high-rise buildings, residential buildings, cars and a gas pipeline were damaged,” Sergiy Lysak, the Governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, wrote on social media.

Kyiv also said on Thursday (August 29, 2024) that Russia had launched 74 attack drones and five missiles at targets across Ukraine but that air defence systems downed most of the projectiles.

The overnight barrage was the third night of large-scale Russian bombardments this week that left at least 11 people dead.

AFP journalists in the capital heard air raid sirens echoing out over Kyiv and at least one explosion during the attacks.

Authorities in the capital and the surrounding area said several private homes had been damaged but that there were no known casualties in the aerial assault.

In Cherkasy, a city in central Ukraine, officials said the attack sparked a fire spanning nearly 3,000 sq. m that dozens of emergency service workers were extinguishing.

The air force said its units had downed two of the missiles and 60 of the Iranian-designed attack drones. More of the drones crashed.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week for the first time that Western-supplied F-16s had been used to counter drone and missile attacks.

A serviceman of the 24th Mechanized Brigade named after King Danylo of the Ukrainian Armed Forces walks down a street, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, near the frontline town of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk region, Ukraine.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Ukraine’s Army has retreated from a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, Nazar Voloshyn, a spokesperson for the Khortytsua ground forces formation, said on Thursday.

A strategically important town in the eastern Donetsk region which has been reduced to rubble under a months-long Russian assault, Chasiv Yar occupies a strategically elevated location. It lies a short distance west of Bakhmut, which was captured by Russia last year after a bitter 10-month battle.

For months, Russian forces have focused on capturing Chasiv Yar and its fall puts nearby cities in jeopardy, compromises critical Ukrainian supply routes and brings Russia closer to its stated aim of seizing the entire Donetsk region.

Ukraine’s defensive positions in the town were “destroyed,” the spokesperson said, adding that there was a threat of serious casualties if troops remained in the area and that Russia did not leave “a single intact building.”

The intensity of Russian strikes on Ukraine’s defensive line in the area of Chasiv Yar has increased over the last month and the town that once had a population of 12,000 has been left deserted, Mr. Voloshyn said.

Other Russian attacks in recent weeks have focused on capturing nearby settlements that would allow them to advance to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the biggest cities in the Ukrainian-controlled part of the Donetsk region.