Ukraine-Russia war map: Where Putin’s forces are making gains in eastern Ukraine
Ukraine-Russia war map: Where Putin’s forces are making gains in eastern Ukraine
Share:
Ukrainian forces fighting around Velyka Novosilka claim its Russian takeover will amount to nothing more than a flag-raising exercise. Russia has claimed to have captured another key Ukrainian town as it looks to consolidate gains ahead of potential peace talks pushed by Donald Trump.
![[A Ukrainian soldier fires a self-propelled howitzer towards Russian troops at a front line in Donetsk]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/12/16/SEI230255504.jpg)
After months of heavy fighting, Russian forces claimed control of the town of Velyka Novosilka in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk on Monday. The town is small, with a prewar population of only 5,000, but it has served as a key assembly area for offensive and defensive Ukrainian operations in the wider area, says Frontelligence Insight, a Ukrainian war tracker. It is also a key route linking towns further east to the rest of unoccupied Ukraine.
It is the second significant town in Donetsk to fall to the Russians this month after Moscow claimed control of Kurakhove roughly 20 miles to the northeast. The city of Toretsk, further north, has also been almost completely occupied. Its fall appears inevitable, according to Ukrainian security think tank the Centre for Defence Strategies (CDS).
Near the northernmost tip of Russia’s attack in Ukraine, Moscow’s troops have also made advances through the town of Dvorichina in the Kharkiv region. It is just north of the city of Kupyansk. “The situation on the frontline remains complicated,” the Ukrainian general staff wrote in its latest update. “The opponent, using their advantage in live force, is attacking our positions.”.
Russian forces have been steadily advancing in eastern Ukraine for months in an attack that has centred on the city of Pokrovsk, a linchpin of the wider Donetsk region’s defence. Ukraine’s general staff said there had been 85 Russian attacks on Monday in that direction.
