Russian troops have captured two villages in the Dnipropetrovsk region, the first settlements they have taken in the south-central Ukrainian area in 3½ years of war, according to the battlefield map maintained by DeepState, a Ukrainian group with ties to the military.
The villages, near the intersection of the neighboring regions of Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia, are not militarily significant, but their occupation is a sign of the pressure that Russian troops are trying to exert on Ukrainian forces along that stretch of the front line. And their capture means yet another morale hit for Ukrainian troops already struggling with being outnumbered and out-droned.
The two settlements are tiny. Zaporizske has about 100 residents; Novoheorhiivka has even fewer.
Although military analysts say that Russia does not intend to try to seize all of the Dnipropetrovsk region, holding territory there could be useful if peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine move forward.
President Trump and his team have pushed the two countries to reach a peace settlement. Mr. Trump has recently met with both President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to bring an end to the war, launched by Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Mr. Trump has also talked about the idea of “land swaps” as part of a deal. No specifics have been discussed publicly, but that could mean, for example, that Russia would keep much of the land it has seized from Ukraine, while trading small areas it holds in the regions of Sumy and Kharkiv for other areas still held by Ukraine but threatened by Russia. Now, the captured villages of Dnipropetrovsk are yet another bargaining chip — although it’s also possible that Ukrainian troops will recapture those or other pieces of land along the ever-shifting front line, where gains are often measured in yards, not miles.
Russia now controls almost 20 percent of Ukraine in the country’s east and south, including the entire Crimean peninsula, almost all of the Luhansk region, and almost three-quarters of three other regions, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Russian troops first crossed into the Dnipropetrovsk region in June.
On Tuesday, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced it had captured these two villages. Ukraine civilian authorities said fighting was ongoing.
“Yes, the Russians have entered and are trying to gain a foothold,” Viktor Trehubov, the spokesman of the Dnipro Regional Administrative District, told RBC-Ukraine. “Ours are fighting to hold their positions.”
On Tuesday evening, the General Staff of Ukraine, the country’s central military command, said that its forces had stopped the advance of the Russians in Zaporizske and that active fighting was going on in Novoheorhiivka.
DeepState analysts pointed out on Telegram that these assault operations are part of a bigger Russian campaign, “carried out by infantry with the support of drones and other fire support.” DeepState added that the Russian forces had entered, were “now entrenching themselves, and accumulating infantry for further advances.”