Mezhova (AFP) — Russia said Sunday that it was advancing into Ukraine’s eastern Dnipropetrovsk region for the first time in its three-year invasion, a significant territorial escalation amid stalled peace talks.

Ukraine’s top political and military leaders did not immediately respond to the claim of the advance, which would be a symbolic and strategic blow after months of battlefield setbacks.

Moscow, which has the initiative across much of the front, has repeatedly refused calls by Ukraine, Europe and US President Donald Trump for an unconditional ceasefire even as it holds talks with Kyiv on a possible settlement to the war.

Russia’s defense ministry said forces from a tank unit had “reached the western border of the Donetsk People’s Republic and are continuing to develop an offensive in the Dnipropetrovsk region.”

Although there was no response from leaders in Kyiv to the claims, Ukraine’s southern army command said Russia “does not give up its intentions to enter the Dnipropetrovsk region, but our fighters are bravely and professionally holding their section of the front line.”

Dnipropetrovsk is not one of the five Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea — that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory.

In a set of peace demands issued to Ukraine during negotiations in Istanbul on 2 June, Moscow demanded formal recognition that these regions were part of Russia, something Kyiv has repeatedly ruled out.

At a first round of talks last month, Ukraine said Russia threatened to accelerate and expand its offensive if Kyiv did not capitulate.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Russia’s three-year war, with millions forced to flee their homes and cities and villages across eastern Ukraine devastated by relentless air attacks and ground combat.

Russia’s ex-president Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the national security council, said the latest advance was a warning to Kyiv.

“Those who do not want to recognize the realities of the war at negotiations, will receive new realities on the ground,” he said on social media.

Russia’s army posted photos showing troops raising the Russian flag over the village of Zorya in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, close to the internal border.

A Ukrainian lieutenant colonel, 60-year-old Oleksandr, said that Russians entering the region would not change the dynamics of the battle.