Top Russian official reports swift advance in Ukraine, rules out talks for now

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia said on Tuesday its forces had advanced by 1,000 square kilometres (390 square miles) in eastern Ukraine in August and September despite a Ukrainian incursion into western Russia, which ruled out any ceasefire talks with Kyiv.

Since Russia sent armoured forces into Ukraine in February 2022, the war has largely been a story of grinding artillery and drone strikes along a heavily fortified 1,000-km (620-mile) front involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu said that the Aug. 6 Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk region had aimed to improve Kyiv’s negotiating position and divert Russian forces from the Donbas front in eastern Ukraine.

But Shoigu said that Russian forces were increasing the pace of their offensive in Donbas, capturing almost 1,000 sq km over August and the first eight days of September.

Russia’s Defence Ministry on Tuesday announced the capture of four villages on the eastern front, but Ukrainian accounts of front-line activity disputed parts of that claim.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy offered no details of the situation on the ground, but praised troops for holding their positions in the two most difficult sectors in the east – Pokrovsk and Kurakhove.

Zelenskiy has said the Kursk operation achieves a number of objectives, including preventing Russian forces from launching their own incursion on the Ukrainian side of the border in that area.

He appeals almost daily for greater numbers of weapons and permission from Kyiv’s Western allies to use them on targets deep inside Russia. U.S. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday his administration was “working that out now”.

FASTEST RATE OF RUSSIAN ADVANCE

Open-source data and battlefield reports indicate that Russian forces in Donbas advanced in August at their fastest rate in about two years.

Shoigu said on state TV that as long as Ukrainian forces were on sovereign Russian soil there would be no talks with Kyiv, and this was the stance of President Vladimir Putin.

Russian forces, which have taken about a fifth of Ukraine, are attempting to take the whole of the eastern Donbas region, comprised of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces. The area is about half the size of the U.S. state of Ohio.

The Russian Defence Ministry said Moscow’s forces had expanded their footprint and now controlled the Donetsk villages of Krasnohorivka, Hryhorivka, Vodiane and Halytsynivka. Russian news agencies said Defence Minister Andrei Belousov congratulated units on the capture of Krasnohorivka.

Russia rarely comments on its losses, but Kyiv and its NATO allies say its recent advances have come at an enormous cost in terms of casualties and destroyed armoured vehicles.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s military on Tuesday said Kyiv’s forces had repelled Russian attacks near Krasnohorivka and Hryhorivka, east of the key city of Pokrovsk. An earlier report said Halytsynivka had come under Russian attack.

Ukrainian military bloggers gave conflicting reports of who was holding Vodiane, further south near the hilltop town of Vuhledar.

Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports from either side.

On Sunday, Russia said its forces had taken full control of another town in eastern Ukraine as Moscow’s forces advance on Pokrovsk, a logistics hub.

On Monday, Moscow said its forces had captured the village of Memryk, 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Pokrovsk.

Putin ordered tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022 in what he calls a “special military operation” against security threats by Western-backed Kyiv. Ukraine has denied such accusations and vowed to expel all Russian forces.

Ukraine also struck the Moscow region on Tuesday in its biggest drone attack so far on the Russian capital.

(Reporting by Reuters; Additional reporting by Oleksandr Kozhukhar in Kyiv, writing by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Ron Popeski and Stephen Coates)