Russia says captured two more villages in eastern Ukraine

Russia has captured two more villages in different parts of eastern Ukraine, the defense ministry said Wednesday, as Russian forces continue their steady advance in the region.

Moscow has been claiming gains in Ukraine’s embattled east regularly since the summer, advancing toward the city of Pokrovsk, from where thousands have fled.

Its defense ministry said troops had captured the village of Krasnyi Yar, south of the town of Myrnograd, which lies close to Pokrovsk.

Ukraine has rushed evacuations of tens of thousands of people from Pokrovsk and Myrnograd as Russian troops advance.

Further north, Moscow also said it had captured the village of Nevske, which lies in the Luhansk region, near the border with the Donetsk region.

It published images of a village with one main road, lined with heavily destroyed houses, and a Russian soldier flying Moscow’s flag through a window of a badly damaged house.

The aerial footage showed the small village to be almost entirely destroyed.

Moscow made the claims as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presented his vision of how to end two years of fighting to parliament in Kyiv.