Russian forces have rapidly advanced in a narrow but important sector of the front line in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv and analysts said Tuesday, before talks between the Russian and US presidents.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky warned ahead of the Friday meeting in Alaska between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin that Moscow was laying the groundwork for further attacks, not peace.
The Ukrainian army said there had been fighting around the village of Kucheriv Yar in the Donetsk region, acknowledging new and speedy Russian gains.
The Ukrainian DeepState blog, which retains close connections with the military, showed Russian advances around 10 kilometers (six miles) over around two days, punching deep into a narrow sliver of Ukraine on the front.
The corridor now apparently under Russian control threatens the town of Dobropillia, a mining hub that civilians are fleeing and that has been coming under Russian drone attacks.
It also further isolates the embattled and destroyed town of Kostiantynivka, which is one of the last large urban areas in the Donetsk region still held by Ukraine.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based observatory, said Russia was dispatching small sabotage groups forward.
It said it was “premature” to call the Russian advances in the Dobropillia area “an operational-level breakthrough.”
The Operational-Tactical Group Donetsk, which oversees parts of the front in the industrial region, also said Russia was probing Ukrainian lines with small sabotage groups, describing battles as “complex, unpleasant and dynamic.”
Trump, who is scheduled to meet Putin on Friday, has described the summit as a “feel-out meeting” to gauge the Russian leader’s ideas for ending the war in Ukraine.
European leaders meanwhile are rushing to ensure respect for Kyiv’s interests.
“We see that the Russian army is not preparing to end the war. On the contrary, they are making movements that indicate preparations for new offensive operations,” Zelensky said in a statement on social media.
Moscow’s army, which invaded Ukraine in 2022, has made costly but incremental gains across the sprawling front in recent months and claims to have annexed four Ukrainian regions while still fighting to control them.
Ukrainian police meanwhile said Tuesday that Russian attacks in the past hours had killed three people and wounded 12 others, including a child.
