WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia captures two villages in Ukraine as Moscow's forces advance on two cities

Russian forces captured two villages in Ukraine, one in Kharkiv region in the northeast and one in eastern Donetsk region, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Sunday.

Donetsk region is where Moscow is concentrating most of its efforts to seize two cities.

Russian forces, making steady progress across Donetsk region, are moving on the towns of Pokrovsk, a logistics centre and site of an important coking colliery, and appear to be closing in on Kurakhove, farther south.

The Defence Ministry statement said troops had taken control of Lozova, near the town of Kupiansk, in an area north of Donetsk region also under Russian pressure in recent weeks. The village of Sontsivka, north of Kurakhove, was also captured.

The ministry on Saturday announced the capture of another village near Kurakhove, Kostiantynopolske.

The Ukraine military's general staff made no mention of those villages falling into Russian hands, but said Sontsivka was in a sector subject to 26 Russian attacks in the past 24 hours. The general staff also reported heavy fighting near Pokrovsk, with 34 Russian attempts to pierce defences.

The popular Ukrainian military blog DeepState said Sontsivka was under Russian control.

Russian reports have described intensified pressure on Kurakhove.

The Moscow-appointed governor of areas of Donetsk region occupied by Russian forces, Denis Pushilin, said on Telegram that Russian troops now controlled the town centre. He also said troops were advancing on Pokrovsk from the south.

Russian troops have been moving through eastern Ukraine in the past two months at the fastest rate since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The Ukrainian military said on Friday its forces had pulled back from the area around two villages -- one near Pokrovsk, the other near Kurakhove -- to avoid being encircled by advancing Russian troops.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Putin vows retaliation for Ukrainian drone strike

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that the organizers of Saturday’s drone attack on the city of Kazan will face a harsh retaliatory response.

“Whoever and no matter how hard they try to destroy something [in Russia], they will face many times greater destruction in their own country for it and will also regret what they are trying to do in our country,” he said Sunday.

Addressing Tatarstan's leader, Rustam Minnikhanov, Putin expressed confidence that the republic will manage to recover from the attack on its capital, Kazan.

“I am certain that the regional authorities will restore everything that was damaged by our enemies and adversaries,” he said, speaking at a video conference on launching new transport infrastructure projects.

The December 21 attack on Kazan targeted residential buildings and a factory, causing damage but no casualties, according to local authorities. Officials reported eight drone strikes in total, including six on residential buildings, one on an industrial enterprise, and one which was intercepted over a river.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Kiev had deployed three waves of fixed-wing drones. Russian air defenses shot down three of the incoming UAVs, and three more were downed with the help of electronic warfare systems, the military reported on Saturday.

Since the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022, Kiev has repeatedly targeted Russian border regions such as Bryansk, Belgorod, and Kursk. Drone strikes have also reached Moscow on several occasions. Kazan, in comparison, lies much farther away, approximately 1,379 kilometers (857 miles) from Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova suggested that the “terrorist attack”was Kiev’s “revenge” for the BRICS summit which Kazan hosted in October and “demonstrated the power and influence of this association in the world.”

It was also “an attempt to intimidate the population of one of the dynamically developing regions of our country,” she said in a statement on Saturday.

Reuters/RT