Russia claims capture of another Dnipropetrovsk Oblast village
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed on Oct. 1 Moscow's troops had captured the village of Verbove in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, marking further gains in the region.
The Ukrainian military refused to comment on the current situation in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. The Kyiv Independent couldn't verify the recent Russian reports.
Russia has broken into Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, a previously unoccupied region of Ukraine, as part of its summer offensive. In late August, battlefield monitors reported that Russian forces had seized villages in the region for the first time, though Ukraine denied the reports.
Later, in mid-September, Kyiv announced that Ukrainian forces had regained control of the village of Filia in the region after its brief occupation by Russia.
In recent days, the open-source battlefield monitoring group DeepState reported that Russian troops had advanced toward Verbove, a village located some 15 kilometers (nine miles) from the town of Pokrovske along the Zaporizhzhia-Donetsk highway.
Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi described the situation near the border of Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts as tense at the meeting with journalists on Sept. 25 attended by the Kyiv Independent. However, he claimed that Ukrainian forces had stopped a Russian attempt to advance.
Syrskyi also said Russia had abandoned its offensive in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, calling the presence of Russian troops there merely "declarative."
Despite this, Russia has intensified its attacks on settlements in the region. A Russian drone attack on the city of Dnipro killed one person and injured over 30 others on Sept. 30.
