Russia captured Ukraine town villages

MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Russia’s defense ministry on Tuesday said it had captured the town of Krasnogorivka in eastern Ukraine as well as three villages in different parts of the Donetsk region.

The ministry said Russian troops had “liberated” the town and the villages of Grygorivka, Galytsynivka and Vodiane.

The ministry statement used the Russian names for all four settlements.

Krasnogorivka, which had a population before the conflict of 16,000, is in an area where the front line has remained relatively unchanged for weeks.

The town lies some 20 kilometers (kms) west of Russian-held Donetsk and had served as a key stronghold for Kyiv.

It became more vulnerable after the fall of nearby Marinka in December 2023 and Avdiivka in February 2024.

Russian troops have been advancing steadily in the Donetsk region in recent weeks and are closing in on the town of Pokrovsk, a vital logistics and transport hub for Ukrainian forces.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that seizing the Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland which includes the Donetsk region, was Russia’s “primary objective.”

On the back foot in the east, Ukraine last month launched an offensive into Russia’s Kursk region, saying it had seized hundreds of square kms.

Ukraine has said one of its objectives had been to halt Russian advances in the east by forcing Moscow to redeploy troops.

Meanwhile, Russian air defenses shot down 144 Ukrainian drones overnight, the defense ministry said Tuesday, including 20 over the capital Moscow.

In a statement, the ministry said it had intercepted “72 unmanned aerial vehicles over Bryansk region, 20 over Moscow region, 14 over Kursk region, 13 over Tula region” and 25 more over five other parts of the country.

A woman was killed near Moscow, Russian officials said on Tuesday, the first time someone has been killed in a Ukrainian attack near the capital since Russia’s military offensive began in 2022.

A 46-year-old woman was killed and three other people hospitalized in a drone strike on the town of Ramenskoye, about 23 kms from Moscow, local governor Andrey Vorobyov said.