Russian forces have captured two villages in eastern Ukraine and are now pressing to encircle Ukrainian soldiers at two locations along the frontline, according to an analysis of the battlefield on Monday.
The two villages, Nevelske and Vodiane, were captured by Russian troops on Sunday, according to DeepState, a group of analysts mapping the battlefield. DeepState’s analysis is based on sources in the Ukrainian military and open-source data like satellite imagery and photos and video posted on social media.
Russian forces have been expanding the territory they control around a key objective in the region, the strategic city of Pokrovsk, which has been strengthened in recent days by Ukrainian reinforcements, the analysis shows.
Now, Russia appears to be trying to cut off Ukrainian forces with pincer movements in two areas — to the south of Pokrovsk and in a pocket of Ukrainian-held territory near the town of Vuhledar, another strategically important site.
Control of those areas would allow Russian forces to broaden their lines of approach toward Pokrovsk, a logistics and transit hub that has been a focal point of the war in recent months, experts say.
“They are trying to strengthen their flanks in this way” along the main axis of attack toward Pokrovsk, said Mykhailo Samus, deputy director at the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies in Ukraine, an independent institution. “Their route to Pokrovsk depends on those flanks.”
The Ukrainian military and Russia have not commented on the status of the villages that DeepState reported had been captured on Sunday.
The last significant movement directly toward Pokrovsk came more than a week ago, with the capture of the town of Novohrodivka. The map produced by DeepState shows the town, southeast of Pokrovsk, to be in Russian hands, although the Ukrainian General Staff has yet to confirm its loss.
Russian forces advanced toward Pokrovsk last month and maintained a focus on capturing the city even after Ukraine launched a surprise incursion into the Kursk region of Russia. Battlefield maps indicate that the advance into Kursk stalled about a week ago.
The intense fighting that has taken place along the front has coincided with a deadly month for civilians in Ukraine, who have increasingly come under nightly attacks on cities by missiles and drones.
The United Nations reported that August was the second deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians in a year, with at least 184 killed and 856 injured.
Still, morale was lifted across the country by news of the surprise operation in the Kursk region. In that operation, Ukraine took numerous Russian prisoners of war, reportedly achieving parity in the number of prisoners of war held by Russia for the first time since the conflict began. Ukraine has claimed to have taken almost 600 Russian prisoners of war in the offensive, but those numbers have not been independently verified.
On Sunday, Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, said in a television interview that Russian prisoners would no longer be allowed to call their relatives back home, though they would be allowed to write to them. He said that this practice was still in compliance with the Geneva Conventions. Mr. Lubinets said the rule change on phone usage was a response to Russian forces executing surrendering Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield.
Ukraine has said that Russia has barred Ukrainian prisoners from contacting their families from captivity.
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