MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian forces took control of two more settlements in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region, Russia's Defence Ministry said on Saturday, the latest in a series of gains it has reported in its steady advance westward.
The ministry statement said Russian forces were now in control of Petropavlivka, a village between the towns of Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, focal points in fighting in recent months in the area.
It also noted the capture of Vremivka, one of a cluster of small towns further south in the Donetsk region.
The ministry also said Russian forces hit Ukraine's military facilities with high-precision weapons in response to an Ukrainian attack on Russia's southern Belgorod region with U.S.-made ATACMS missiles.
Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports from either side in the 34-month-old conflict.
Ukrainian military statements made no mention of either of the two villages changing hands, but referred to heavy fighting near the key city of Pokrovsk.
Ukraine's popular Deep State blog, which documents changes in the positions held by both sides using open source materials, placed both Petropavlivka and Vremivka in Russian hands.
The spokesperson for the Ukrainian military's Khortytsya, or eastern, group of forces dismissed for the second day running any notion that Russian forces had entered Pokrovsk.
"There have been no developments in Pokrovsk, things are stable," Viktor Trehubov told national television. "The enemy is not there."
The city is a transport hub and site of Ukraine's only coking coal pit, where work was suspended this week.
Russia's military, after failing to advance on the capital Kyiv in the weeks following its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, has since focused its efforts of capturing all of the Donbas - made up of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
It now holds about 20% of Ukraine's territory.
The Ukrainian military's General Staff, in a late night report, said Russian forces trying to pierce Ukrainian defences had launched 84 attacks in the Pokrovsk sector. Fourteen battles were still raging in the area.
The report listed a series of villages in the sector which it said had come under Russian attack -- including three which Russia's military said it secured in the past week and another where Russia said it took control last month.
(Reporting by Reuters; editing by Mark Heinrich, Ron Popeski and Deepa Babington)
