Russian President Vladimir Putin's military forces made confirmed advances on Thursday in two areas along the front lines in Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S. think tank.
The assessment comes as Ukraine's military attacked Russian positions in Crimea during the early hours of Thursday. Ukrainian Armed Forces Center for Strategic Communications (StratCom) reported Kyiv's forces struck a Russian command post near Sevastopol, while Ukrainian Air Force Commander Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk indicated the intended targets of his country's strikes were the locations of Russian military leaders on the peninsula.
The Russian Ministry of Defense, meanwhile, claimed its forces thwarted Ukraine's assault in Crimea. In its Thursday assessment, the ISW said that while the reports on the action in Crimea were conflicting, Russia made confirmed gains elsewhere in Ukraine.
Newsweek reached out to the Russian and Ukrainian ministries of defense via email on Thursday for comment.
The ISW said Russia's military made a confirmed advance near Kreminna, a city in the eastern region of Luhansk. The think tank said geolocated footage published Thursday showed Russian forces had made gains east of the village of Terny, just northwest of Kreminna.
Russia also advanced near Avdiivka in the Donetsk Oblast. Fighting has been intense around the city for months, and Moscow has devoted considerable resources into its efforts to capture it.
The ISW said "intensified" combat continues in Avdiivka even as geolocated footage indicated Russian success northeast of the city. A Russian military blogger claimed Putin's military had also advanced southeast of the city, and another pro-Kremlin blogger wrote of advances near the settlements of Berdychi Ocheretyne—both close to Avdiivka—but ISW said the claims of both bloggers could not be confirmed.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, fighting continued in several areas around the city of Kupyansk in the Kharkiv Oblast. However, the ISW reported that Ukrainian Ground Forces Command Spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Volodymyr Fityo said Russia's offensive operations in the Kupyansk sector had slowed in recent days, perhaps due to "deteriorating weather conditions."
Russian and Ukrainian forces maintained fighting in areas around Donetsk City on Thursday with neither side making confirmed advancements. The ISW gave a similar assessment of the situation near Bakhmut—"continued positional engagements" with no confirmed gains.
Russia captured the eastern front city of Bakhmut in May after months of intense fighting, but Kyiv set its sights on attempting to liberate the settlement during its summer counteroffensive.
Putin's forces may be looking beyond Bakhmut, though. Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine's ground forces, reported in a Wednesday Telegram post that Russian units were conducting "intensive offensive operations" around Bakhmut in what he said was an apparent attempt to move toward the strategic city of Chasiv Yar.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Jon Jackson is an Associate Editor at Newsweek based in New York. His focus is on reporting on the Ukraine ... Read more
