The Ukrainian forces acknowledged that the Russian army invaded the eastern industrial area of ​​Dnipropetrovsk and was trying to consolidate its position, according to the BBC. “This is the first attack so large in the Dnipropetrovsk region,” said Victor Trachubov, of the Dnipro Operational-Strategic Troop Group on the BBC, though it made it clear that their advance has stopped.

Russia claims throughout the summer that it has entered the region as its forces are trying to promote deeper into Ukrainian territory from the Donetsk region.

In early June, Russian officials said they had started an attack on Dnipropetrovsk, but the latest reports from her Ukraine suggest that they have just crossed the regional border.

Any Russian advance to Dnipropetrovsk would be a blow to Ukrainian morale, as the US -led diplomatic effort to end the war seems to weaken, despite the president’s meeting Donald Trump with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin In Alaska.

The Ukrainian Deepstate mapping program estimated on Tuesday that Russia had now occupied two villages right in the region, Zaporizke and Novohryhorivka.

However, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces denied that this was happening. The army “continues to control” Zaporizke, said in a statement, and “active hostilities are also continued in the novohryhorivka village area”.

Moscow has not claimed Dnipropetrovsk, unlike Donetsk and the other four eastern Ukraine regions, but has attacked his major cities, including the regional capital Dnipro.

Prior to the war, Dnipropetrovsk had a population of more than three million inhabitants and was Ukraine’s second largest center of heavy industry after Donbas, which consists of Donetsk and Lugansk areas.

Although Russian forces have made slow progress in the occupation of territories and have suffered very high losses, they have recently made profits in Donetsk, the BBC points out

A small infantry group suddenly went 10 kilometers beyond Ukraine’s defensive lines near Dobropillia earlier this month, but the latest indications show that their advance has stopped.

Putin allegedly told Trump that he would be willing to end the war if Ukraine was delivering the areas of the Donetsk region that is still controlled, but many Ukrainians believe the Russian leader has other plans.

Colonel Pavlos Palissa, deputy head of the Presidential Office in Kiev, warned reporters in the US in June that the Kremlin wanted to occupy the whole of Ukraine east of the Dnieper River, which divides Ukraine.

EU foreign policy leader Kaya Calla also warned that the tradition of Ukrainian territory to Russia under a peace agreement would be a “trap”. “We forget that Russia has not made a single concession and that this is the attacking side,” he told the BBC.

After meeting with Putin in Alaska and then with Ukraine President Volodimir Zelenski In Washington, Trump said last week that he had begun preparations for a summit between the two leaders. By the end of last week, hopes for a major development faded.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted that ‘the agenda [για τη σύνοδο κορυφής] It’s not ready at all “and that no meeting is scheduled. He also said that any discussion of future security guarantees without Russia’s participation is “pointless”, although this is not accepted by the West.

In the meantime, Zelenski urged his Western allies to step up their efforts to reach an agreement on future security guarantees in the event of an agreement. The Ukrnaian president met with the leader of the British Armed Forces, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, in Kiev on Tuesday, and the UK prime minister’s spokesman said the United Kingdom would be ready to send troops to the ground.

German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz said on Tuesday that security guarantees for Ukraine will first allow the Ukrainian army to defend his country in the long run. Mertz said that Zelenski had made it clear that he was ready to sit on the table with Putin and now it is Moscow’s turn to answer: “If the Russian president is serious about ending the killings, then he will accept the proposal.”