MOSCOW: Russia on Saturday said it had captured a new village in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, which Moscow’s forces say they reached at the beginning of July.
The defense ministry said its troops had seized the village of Novomykolaivka near the border with the Donetsk region — the epicenter of fighting on the front.
AFP was unable to confirm this claim.
DeepState, an online battlefield map run by Ukrainian military analysts, said the village was still under Kyiv’s control.
Russian forces are better equipped and vastly outnumber Ukrainian troops. They have been carrying out offensives in Ukraine for months and gaining ground across the eastern front.
At the end of August, Ukraine had for the first time acknowledged that Russian soldiers had entered the Dnipropetrovsk region, where Moscow had claimed advances at the start of the month.
The Russian army currently controls about a fifth of Ukrainian territory.
The Kremlin is demanding that Ukraine withdraw from its eastern Donbas region as a precondition for halting hostilities, something that Kyiv has rejected.
The Dnipropetrovsk region is not one of the five Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Crimea — that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory.
On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin wanted to “occupy all of Ukraine” and would not stop until his goal was achieved, even if Kyiv agreed to cede territory.
For its part, the Kremlin noted on Friday that peace negotiations with Kyiv were on “pause,” following the failure of several attempts in recent months to diplomatically resolve the conflict triggered by Russia’s full-scale offensive in February 2022.
A Russian shelling attack on the town of Kostyantynivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region killed three people earlier Saturday, regional prosecutors said.
Russia claims another village in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk
https://arab.news/cabme
Russia claims another village in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk
- The defense ministry said its troops had seized the village of Novomykolaivka
- The Russian army currently controls about a fifth of Ukrainian territory
Belarus frees protest leader Kolesnikova, Nobel winner Bialiatski
- The charismatic Kolesnikova was the star of the 2020 movement that presented the most serious challenge to Lukashenko in his 30-year rule
- Bialiatski — a 63-year-old veteran rights defender and 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner — is considered by Lukashenko to be a personal enemy
VILNIUS: Belarusian street protest leader Maria Kolesnikova and Nobel Prize winner Ales Bialiatski walked free on Saturday with 121 other political prisoners released in an unprecedented US-brokered deal.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has locked up thousands of his opponents, critics and protesters since the 2020 election, which rights groups said was rigged and which triggered weeks of protests that almost toppled him.
The charismatic Kolesnikova was the star of the 2020 movement that presented the most serious challenge to Lukashenko in his 30-year rule.
She famously ripped up her passport as the KGB tried to deport her from the country.
Bialiatski — a 63-year-old veteran rights defender and 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner — is considered by Lukashenko to be a personal enemy. He has documented rights abuses in the country, a close ally of Moscow, for decades.
Bialiatski stressed he would carry on fighting for civil rights and freedom for political prisoners after his surprise release, which he called a “huge emotional shock.”
“Our fight continues, and the Nobel Prize was, I think, a certain acknowledgement of our activity, our aspirations that have not yet come to fruition,” he told media in an interview from Vilnius.
“Therefore the fight continues,” he added.
He was awarded the prize in 2022 while already in jail.
After being taken out of prison, he said he was put on a bus and blindfolded until they reached the border with Lithuania.
His wife, Natalia Pinchuk, told AFP that her first words to him on his release were: “I love you.”
- ‘All be free’ -
Most of those freed, including Kolesnikova, were unexpectedly taken to Ukraine, surprising their allies who had been waiting for all of them in Lithuania.
She called for all political prisoners to be released.
“I’m thinking of those who are not yet free, and I’m very much looking forward to the moment when we can all embrace, when we can all see one another, and when we will all be free,” she said in a video interview with a Ukrainian government agency.
Hailing Bialiatski’s release, the Nobel Committee told AFP there were still more than 1,200 political prisoners inside the country.
“Their continued detention starkly illustrates the ongoing, systemic repression in the country,” said chairman Jorgen Watne Frydnes.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said their release should “strengthen our resolve... to keep fighting for all remaining prisoners behind bars in Belarus because they had the courage to speak truth to power.”
Jailed opponents of Lukashenko are often held incommunicado in a prison system notorious for its secrecy and harsh treatment.
There had been fears for the health of both Bialiatski and Kolesnikova while they were behind bars, though in interviews Saturday they both said they felt okay.
The deal was brokered by the United States, which has pushed for prisoners to be freed and offered some sanctions relief in return.
- Potash relief -
An envoy of US President Donald Trump, John Coale, was in Minsk this week for talks with Lukashenko.
He told reporters from state media that Washington would remove sanctions on the country’s potash industry, without providing specific details.
A US official separately told AFP that one American citizen was among the 123 released.
Minsk also freed Viktor Babariko, an ex-banker who tried to run against Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election but was jailed instead.
Kolesnikova was part of a trio of women, including Svetlana Tikhanovskaya who stood against Lukashenko and now leads the opposition in exile, who headed the 2020 street protests.
She was serving an 11-year sentence in a prison colony.
In 2020, security services had put a sack over her head and drove her to the Ukrainian border. But she ripped up her passport, foiling the deportation plan, and was placed under arrest.
Former prisoners from the Gomel prison where she was held have told AFP she was barred from talking to other political prisoners and regularly thrown into harsh punishment cells.
An image of Kolesnikova making a heart shape with her hands became a symbol of anti-Lukashenko protests.
Bialiatski founded Viasna in the 1990s, two years after Lukashenko became president.
