Russia said Thursday it had captured Ukrainian villages in three separate areas of the front line, expanding its summer offensive despite US calls to end the fighting.
Ukraine did not immediately comment on Moscow鈥檚 claims. In a statement, the Russian defence ministry said its forces had 鈥榣iberated鈥� the settlements of Popiv Yar in the eastern Donetsk region, Degtiarne in the northeast Kharkiv region and Kamianske in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.
Kamianske, on the banks of the Dnipro river, was home to around 2,000 people before the conflict.
Degtiarne is a tiny hamlet near the Russian border, but lies in an area of the front line that Moscow鈥檚 forces had not penetrated since the early months of its offensive.
Popiv Yar is a small village south of the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk. The Russian military accelerated its advances for a third consecutive month in June.
Meanwhile, Russia gave Ukraine the bodies of 1,000 soldiers on Thursday as part of an agreement reached at peace talks last month, Moscow鈥檚 top negotiator said on social media.
Two rounds of negotiations in Istanbul between Moscow and Kyiv have failed to result in any progress towards a ceasefire, instead yielding large-scale prisoner exchanges and deals to return the bodies of killed soldiers.
鈥楩ollowing the agreements reached in Istanbul, another 1,000 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers were handed over to Ukraine today,鈥� Russian negotiator and Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky said on Telegram.
Ukraine handed over 19 killed Russian soldiers, he added. He posted photos showing people in white medical suits lifting white body bags from the back of refrigerated trucks. Exchanges of captured soldiers and the repatriation of remains have taken place regularly throughout the conflict in some of the only successful diplomacy between the sides.
Despite pressure from US president Donald Trump, Russia has rejected calls for a ceasefire and the two sides appear no closer to agreeing an end to the three-year conflict.
