Russia says caught another 2 Ukrainian villages

Russia claimed on Saturday the capture of two villages in eastern and southern Ukraine and pressed on with its advance in the midst of the stumbling effort for a ceasefire by US President Donald Trump.

The Ministry of Defense said Moscow’s forces caught the village of Shchebraki in the southern Zaporizhia region and Panteleimonivka in the Eastern Donetsk region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meanwhile said Russia had launched more than 170 drones in Ukraine overnight, striking targets in Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Khmelnytskyi regions.

He said four people were killed in DNIPRO, where the strike hit a hotel complex and 21 others were injured, including a pregnant woman.

“Russia makes a mockery of peacekeeping efforts around the world. It pulls out the war and saw terror because it still doesn’t feel any real pressure,” Zelensky said.

Russian strikes over Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv -Region killed a person on Saturday and wounded 14 others, said regional governor Oleg Sinegubov.

For several weeks, the United States have been trying to negotiate a ceasefire in the Black Sea and in strikes aimed at energy infrastructure in both nations with both Moscow and Kiev.

While both countries have in principle accepted these ceasefire, their implementation remains unclear, and Kyiv and Moscow accuse each other of trying to derail them.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the idea of ​​a “transition administration” for Ukraine, under the auspices of the UN, an opportunity that involves Zelensky’s departure before any peace agreement was negotiated.