Monitors claim Russia captured 2 Dnipropetrovsk Oblast villages for first time

Russian forces occupied the villages of Zaporizke and Novoheorhiivka in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, DeepState monitoring group reported on Aug. 26.
This marks the first time the battlefield monitors report Russia taking control of settlements in the central-eastern region that Moscow's forces sought to penetrate for the past few months.
The two small settlements lie near the administrative borders between the Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Russia's Defense Ministry claimed to have captured the villages as of Aug. 25.
The Kyiv Independent could not independently verify the claims.
Victor Tregubov, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Dnipro group of forces, told the Kyiv Independent that claims about the capture of Zaporizke appeared already on Aug. 25 and were not confirmed by Ukraine at the time.
The spokesperson added that further details about the situation in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast would be available in the evening of Aug. 26.

Previously, Russian forces attempted to enter the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast village of Dachne on several occasions but were repelled, the Ukrainian military has said.
DeepState shows Dachne mostly in the "gray zone," an area contested between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian state media in June that Russian forces were conducting operations in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast as part of efforts to create a so-called "buffer zone" on Ukrainian territory.
The central-eastern region suffers daily Russian aerial and artillery attacks and borders Donetsk Oblast, a focal point of Russia's invasion since 2014 and a major battleground since the full-scale invasion in 2022.
