(Reuters) -A Russian attack killed three people in southeastern Zaporizhzhia region on Sunday, the regional governor said, as Moscow’s forces press on with their slow advance westward along the 1,000-km (620-mile) front line with Ukraine.
Governor Ivan Fedorov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said the three people were killed in the daytime strike on the town of Stepnohirsk. Private homes were destroyed.
Reuters could not independently confirm the report.
In Kamianske, a town a few kilometers south of Stepnohirsk on the Dnipro River in Zaporizhzhia region, a military spokesman said on Saturday that Ukrainian troops were holding on to their positions despite Russian attempts to take control.
Fedorov’s account came amid reports in recent days of new Russian military action in Ukraine’s east and southeast.
Ukraine’s top commander said Moscow’s forces were changing their tactics, using smaller sabotage units in a bid to push forward with their drive through eastern Donetsk region.
Russian forces have focused their drive on parts of Donetsk region, particularly the logistics center of Pokrovsk, under Russian attack for months.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Thursday its forces had scored a major gain by capturing the town of Chasiv Yar, to the northeast, after months of fighting, though Ukraine has not acknowledged this. Russia’s Defence Ministry on Saturday said it had taken control of another village closer to Pokrovsk.
Denis Pushilin, the Russia-installed head of parts of Donetsk region under Moscow’s control, said in a video posted online on Sunday the capture of Chasiv Yar, located on high ground would enable them to make further gains.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s top commander, writing on Facebook on Saturday, said his forces faced the fiercest fighting around Pokrovsk and in two other sectors.
“At the same time, the Russians are resorting to the tactic of ‘total infiltration’ with the increase of sabotage actions in our rear,” he wrote. “It is in this way that they are trying to enter Pokrovsk.”
Ukrainian forces, he said, had set up “counter-sabotage reserves, whose task is to seek out and destroy enemy reconnaissance and sabotage groups.”
(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Bogdan Kochubey; Editing by Chris Reese)
