Russia announced on Tuesday that it had captured the village of Stepovoye (Steppes in Ukrainian) in Zaporizhia region, southeastern Ukraine, TASS and Reuters reported. The village is located less than 50 kilometers southeast of the city of Zaporizhia - the administrative center of the region, BTA reports.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, its forces have broken through the Ukrainian army's defense lines in the area. As a result, the strategically important Orekhov-Kamenskoye road was cut off, Vladimir Rogov, a senior representative of the Public Chamber of Russia, told TASS.
One of the most influential pro-Russian military bloggers, Yuriy Podoliaka, announced that Russian forces had broken through the first line of defense of the Ukrainian army in the Zaporizhia direction and entered the nearby village of Malyye Shcherbaki.
Reuters specifies that it cannot independently confirm these claims, and there has been no official comment from the Ukrainian side yet.
Zaporozhye region is one of four Ukrainian regions that Russia announced it would annex in 2022, but controls only part of the territory.
In recent weeks, Russian forces have also been making slow but methodical progress in the neighboring Donetsk region. Moscow also claims to have achieved success in its attempts to push back Ukrainian units that have infiltrated the border region of Russia's Kursk region.