Russia's Defense Ministry said Tuesday that its forces captured a town in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region, the latest territorial gain for Moscow's advancing troops as Kyiv warned of intense fighting in two other key frontline towns.
The Russian military said its forces "liberated" the town of Dvorichna, which had a pre-war population of more than 3,000.
Dvorichna, located across the strategic Oskil river, was seized by Russian forces at the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, before being re-taken by Kyiv months later in a shock counteroffensive.
Ukrainian forces have been gradually pushed back from the area over the past year, outgunned and outmanned by Russian troops.
Kyiv said Tuesday that its forces were repelling intense Russian attacks in the embattled towns of Chasiv Yar and Toretsk in the eastern Donetsk region.
"With the support of artillery, the enemy continues to storm our positions at the Kramatorsk and Toretsk sectors," Ukraine's Khortytsya troop grouping, tasked with holding ground at key sectors of the industrial region, said in a statement on social media.
"Heavy fighting continues in the urban areas of Chasiv Yar and Toretsk," it added.
Ukrainian military bloggers claimed that Russian forces are advancing on the flanks of Chasiv Yar, a strategic hilltop town that was home to some 12,000 people before the conflict.
Toretsk is one of a string of mining towns in the Donetsk region and Russian forces have been fighting for months to capture it.
Meanwhile, eight people were wounded in overnight Russian attacks in the southern Odesa region and the eastern Kharkiv region, local officials said.
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