Russia announced today that it has captured the Ukrainian city of Toretsk in eastern Donetsk region, TASS reported, BTA reported.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced that Dzerzhinsk (the old Soviet name by which the city is called in Russia) in the "Donetsk People's Republic" has been "liberated".
There has been no reaction from Ukraine so far. Late last year, however, the Ukrainian army said that the situation in Toretsk was dire, with fighting taking place literally for every building. The city, which had over 30,000 inhabitants before the war began, is located in the Bakhmutsky district and stands on one of the roads to Konstantinovka (Kostyantynivka in Ukrainian - ed.), to the west.
Russia and the United States have not yet begun discussing a possible meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump, the Russian Interfax news agency reported earlier today, citing Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
According to him, there have been no contacts so far either on the need for such a meeting or on where and when it could take place. Trump and Putin have already expressed a strong desire to meet in person. If such a meeting does indeed take place, its agenda is expected to focus on the US president's stated goal of ending the war in Ukraine as soon as possible, Reuters notes.