Zelensky calls Putin's Kostiantynivka bluff: 'Let's meet there'
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President Volodymyr Zelensky has dismissed Russian President Vladimir Putin's claim that the Donetsk Oblast city of Kostiantynivka was under Russian control, describing it as a lie for media attention.
"Of course, this is not true – it is simply yet another Russian lie designed to generate some sort of news," Zelensky said in a July 4 call with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
"If Kostiantynivka were currently under Russian control, then surely Putin would have no problem meeting me there and finding diplomatic solutions to finally end the war," he quipped.
Speaking to Ukrainska Pravda, General Staff Spokesperson Major Andriy Kovalev said some groups of Russian infantry troops have entered the embattled city, and the situation is difficult, but Kostiantynivka remains under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Ukrainian troops continue to hold positions at certain lines, defending the city and its outskirts, while carrying out counter sabotage operations, Kovalev said.
"During July 3, the enemy carried out 11 assaults in the specified direction, but no success was achieved. Instead, the enemy, not for the first time, resorts to the dissemination of outright disinformation and fakes by the highest officials," he told Ukrainska Pravda.
General Valery Gerasimov, chief of Russia's General Staff, also said the town had fallen under Russian control, describing the once-67,000-person city as "one of the main defensive hubs within the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk-Kostiantynivka fortified area."
The cities make up the so-called "fortress belt," which remains the main barrier to Moscow's long-held ambition of conquering all of Donbas. It is at the center of fierce fighting, with Russian forces breaking into Kostiantynivka last month.
By early June, the command of the 19th Army Corps in charge of the defense of the city said that over a hundred Russian soldiers were inside the urban area of Kostiantynivka.
