The Russian army stated today that occupied a small village in the area of ​​Kharkivin eastern Ukraine, with the forces of Kiev to assure from their side that the village has “no importance” from a military point of view.

This announcement, however, demonstrates the increased pressure exerted by Moscow’s forces on the front in recent weeks. Last Thursday, the Russian military announced that captured another small village, Veseloyein the Donetsk region (east).

“The village of Krakhmalnoye, in the Kharkiv region, was liberated thanks to the operations successfully conducted by the units of the ‘West’ military corps in the Kupyansk zone,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in its daily bulletin on operations in Ukraine.

The community, home to some 45 residents before February 24, 2022, is located 30 kilometers southeast of Kupyansk, which has been the target of attacks by Russian forces for months.

According to a representative of the Ukrainian ground forces, Mr Volodymyr Fitio, asked today on Ukrainian TV, the occupation of the village “is of no importance” from a strategic point of view for the front.

“It is about five houses. They were destroyed by the Russians,” he said, assuring that Ukrainian troops had “moved to ready reserve positions,” where they “now continue to defend, preventing the enemy from continuing his advance.”

Faced with these repeated attacks, the Ukrainian authorities, for their part, had earlier in the week ordered the evacuation of 26 communities in the Kharkiv region, where Kupyansk is located, a decision that affected about 3,000 people, including 279 children.

All of this zone was occupied by Russia at the beginning of the offensive it ordered in February 2022 Vladimir Putin, until a Ukrainian blitzkrieg liberated the area in September of that year, forcing Moscow’s troops into a humiliating retreat.

Russia went on the offensive again in the zone this summer of 2023, during which time Ukraine attempted, without success, to launch a major counteroffensive in the Donbass (east) and the south.

Since the fall and after the failure of Ukrainian attempts to recapture these territories, Russian forces have been pushing northeast, in the Kupyansk zone, but also east, especially around the city of Avdiivka.

For its part, Kiev asserts that it is holding firm and inflicting significant casualties on the Russians, but it is also pressing its Western allies for its weapons and ammunition needs to enable it to continue to resist.