Russian forces advance in Ukraine's east in lead-up to Trump-Putin talks

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 said 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.

he Ukrainian DeepState blog, which retains close connections with the military, showed Russian advances around 10 kilometres 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 forwards.

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".

Tatarigami_UA, a former Ukrainian army officer whose Frontelligence Insight analysis tracks the conflict, posted:

"In both 2014 and 2015, Russia launched major offensives ahead of negotiations to gain leverage. The current situation is serious, but far from the collapse some suggest."

Kyiv's military said earlier on Tuesday that Ukraine has retaken two villages in its eastern region of Sumy.

"It's tough. But we are holding back the enemy," Ukraine's top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, wrote on Facebook following a meeting on Tuesday with Zelensky and Ukraine's top brass.

"In the Sumy direction, we are conducting active operations and have some success advancing forward, liberating Ukrainian land."

'New offensive operations'

Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, said the Russians had been able to advance due to what he called "a partial collapse in the front" due to Ukraine's shortage of soldiers.

He said, without citing evidence, that Ukraine had redeployed elite forces to try to thwart the advance. Russia's Interfax news agency and Ukrainian war bloggers reported the same.

"This breakthrough is like a gift to Putin and Trump during the negotiations," Markov added, suggesting it could increase pressure on Kyiv to cede some land to prevent the Russian army eventually taking the rest of Donetsk by force.

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.

Unconfirmed media reports say Putin has told Trump he wants Ukraine to hand over the part of the Donetsk region that Russia does not control.

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.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)