Russia's military said Wednesday that its forces captured the village of Kruhliakivka in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region, where it has been stepping up pressure on Kyiv's forces for months.
The village was home to around 1,200 people before the full-scale invasion and lies around 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Kupiansk, an embattled Ukrainian stronghold that Moscow has been trying to surround.
Russian army units “liberated the settlement of Krugliakovka in the Kharkiv region,” the Defense Ministry said in a daily briefing, using the Russian name for the village.
Kyiv forced Russian troops away from Kupiansk and much of the Kharkiv region in late 2022, but Russia is pushing back again, pressing its advantage against overstretched and exhausted Ukrainian forces.
Moscow has advanced 478 square kilometers (185 square miles) in Ukraine so far this month — a record since March 2022 — according to an AFP analysis of data from the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War.
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