July 3 (Reuters) – Russia’s military told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday that its forces had taken control of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine, a key locality whose capture Moscow has long sought in its advance through the \u200cDonetsk region.<\/p>\n
Putin, shown in videos visiting a command post and receiving a report from top commanders, praised the city’s \u200ccapture as an important strategic achievement.<\/p>\n
He also said Russian forces had to increase the scale of security zones in response to intensified Ukrainian long-range strikes, mainly against \u200bRussia’s oil industry.<\/p>\n
Ukraine made no comment on Russia’s claim to have seized Kostiantynivka.<\/p>\n
General Valery Gerasimov, chief of Russia’s General Staff, announced the city’s capture in a report on the conduct of the war, now in its fifth year.<\/p>\n
Gerasimov said the southern group of forces was carrying out offensive operations to “liberate” all of the Donetsk region, part of the broader Donbas region over which Russia has vowed to secure control \u200cas a key aim of its war effort.<\/p>\n
“The \u2060troops of the group have liberated the city of Kostiantynivka, one of the main defensive hubs of the enemy within the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk-Kostiantynivka fortified area”, Gerasimov said.<\/p>\n
Russia’s military has for some time reported that its \u2060troops were in control of parts of Kostiantynivka, one of several cities seen as a network of key fortifications in Ukraine’s defence of the region.<\/p>\n
Putin described the city as having an important strategic significance.<\/p>\n
“We all know that this city is a key transport and large industrial centre \u200bof Donbas,” \u200bPutin said.<\/p>\n
RUSSIAN PICTURES SHOW SOLDIERS IN CITY<\/p>\n
The Defence Ministry posted images on \u200bTelegram that it said were scenes from Kostiantynivka, including \u200cpictures of Russian soldiers holding national flags by shattered buildings.<\/p>\n
Gerasimov also told Putin that Russian forces were closing in on Lyman, a town about 70 km (45 miles) to the north which he said was “of key logistical and strategic importance for further advances in this direction”.<\/p>\n
The head of Russia’s northern troops, Yevgeny Nikiforov, said his forces had “not yet fully managed to resolve the task” of preventing Ukrainian drone strikes that have hit oil installations and caused fuel shortages in Russia.<\/p>\n
Putin responded by saying: “The more attacks the enemy tries to \u200ccarry out on our civilian facilities … the larger a security zone we\u2019ll \u200bhave to establish in the neighbouring territory.”<\/p>\n
Nikiforov told Putin that Russian troops were \u200bmaking progress in securing border areas in the Kharkiv and \u200bSumy regions, where Moscow has called for expanded buffer zones.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other officials have \u200csaid Russia’s advances in eastern Ukraine have slowed considerably \u200bsince the beginning of the year \u200band Kyiv’s forces have even recaptured some territory.<\/p>\n
Putin, in his remarks, dismissed Kyiv’s statements as an “information campaign in which it puts on display supposed successes”. Zelenskiy sent an open letter to Putin last month seeking a direct meeting but \u200bthe Kremlin leader rejected the proposal.<\/p>\n
U.S.-brokered attempts to \u200cmove towards a peace deal have been put on hold during the conflict in Iran, but both Moscow and \u200bKyiv say they are anticipating a visit soon by the two top negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.<\/p>\n
(Reporting \u200bby Reuters; Editing by Edmund Klamann, Bill Berkrot and Tom Hogue)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 3 (Reuters) – Russia’s military told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday that its forces had taken…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":911788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[148057,341,368669,50,257,342,158168,368670,273,158172,215657,274,103],"class_list":["post-911787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-donetsk-region","tag-eastern-ukraine","tag-kostiantynivka","tag-news","tag-russia","tag-russian-forces","tag-russian-troops","tag-southern-group-of-forces","tag-ukraine","tag-ukrainian-president","tag-valery-gerasimov","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}