regained control of nearly 50 square km<\/a> of its territory in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n“Since the \u200bbeginning of this year, a total of 80 settlements and more than 1,700 square kilometres of territory have \u200bcome under our control,” Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, said in footage released by the defence ministry on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reuters was unable to verify the battlefield accounts, and a spokesperson for Ukraine’s General Staff said he \u200bwould not comment on the claim. Pro-Ukrainian maps indicate Russia has taken around 600 square km this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gerasimov \u200bsaid Russia’s Southern Grouping of forces was attacking the Donetsk fortress belt comprising the cities of Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka, \u200cand that \u2060Russian forces were about 7 to 12 km (4.3 to 7.5 miles) from Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russian units were already fighting in parts of Kostiantynivka, he said. In addition, Gerasimov said, Russian forces were advancing in Sumy in the north and Kharkiv in the northeast to create what he called “a security zone”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kyiv’s military said on Tuesday that \u200bits forces had stopped \u200btwo Russian attempts to advance \u2060around villages near Sloviansk over the past 24 hours, and that Moscow had carried out 19 attacks near Kostiantynivka and eight nearby villages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It also said Russian forces \u200bhad made five attempts to break Ukrainian defences around several settlements near the \u200bRussian border in \u2060the Kharkiv region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Reuters) MOSCOW, April 21 – Russian forces have taken 1,700 square km (656 square miles) of territory in Ukraine this \u200cyear and are advancing on its so-called fortress belt in Donbas, Moscow’s top general said while inspecting his forces. Russia has since its 2022 invasion been seeking to take the whole of the Donbas area in eastern Ukraine, where Kyiv’s forces have been pushed \u200bback towards a line of cities in grinding fighting. Kyiv has also reported some gains in the \u200bdeadliest war in Europe since World War Two. Top Ukrainian commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said \u2060in mid-April that Kyiv’s forces had regained control… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56885,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56882"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56887,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56882\/revisions\/56887"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/56885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}