Russia claims to have seized new villages in eastern Ukraine

Moscow [Russia], January 13: Russia claimed it had captured two villages in eastern Ukraine where its forces have been steadily advancing for months, as Ukraine's president urged allies to deliver all the weapons they have promised to send to Kiev.
The Russian Defence Ministry said on Sunday that soldiers have captured the village of Yantarne in the eastern Donetsk region, about 10km (six miles) southwest of Kurakhove, a key logistics hub that Moscow claimed to have seized last week - a day after Russia's army said it had also taken new territory northwest of Kurakhove.
The Defence Ministry added that soldiers had also captured the village of Kalinove in the northeastern Kharkiv region. The village is on the western bank of the Oskil River, which for a long time formed the front line between the two armies in the region.
A Ukrainian official, quoted by the AFP news agency, said on Thursday that Russian forces had managed to establish a bridgehead on the western bank after crossing the river.
Russia's army has spent months making attempts to cross the river, which also cuts through Kupiansk, a city recaptured by Ukraine in its 2022 counteroffensive.
Separately, the Russian Defence Ministry said that over the past 24 hours, Russia's forces have carried out strikes on Ukrainian military airfields, personnel and vehicles in 139 locations using the air force, drones, missiles and artillery.
Ukrainian air defences downed 60 out of 94 drones launched by Russia overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force.
It said that 34 drones were "lost", in reference to Ukraine's use of electronic warfare to redirect Russian drones.
Falling drone fragments damaged houses in the Kharkiv, Sumy and Poltava regions, but no one was hurt, the air force said.
In the southern Kherson region, three people were injured by drones on Sunday, regional authorities said, and about 23,000 households were left without electricity after Russian shelling damaged power equipment in the city.
The attack targeted the Dniprovskyi district along the Dnipro River, an area of Kherson that is regularly shelled by Russian forces on the opposite bank. Kherson's governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said Kherson city and about 50 settlements in the surrounding region had been shelled by Russian forces over the past 24 hours.
"The Russian military shelled social infrastructure and residential areas of the region's settlements, in particular, damaging two multistorey buildings and eight private houses," Prokudin said on
Telegram.
In the Russian-controlled section of the Kherson region, a Ukrainian drone attacked a car, killing a 76-year-old woman outside her house, Russian-installed Governor Vladimir Saldo said on Telegram.
In a statement on Sunday, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky called on allies to honour all promises to supply Ukraine with weapons, including those to counter Russian air attacks.
Zelensky said that over the past week, Russian forces had launched hundreds of attacks on Ukraine and nearly 700 aerial bombs and more than 600 attack drones were used.
"Every week, the Russian war continues only because the Russian army retains its ability to terrorise Ukraine and exploit its superiority in the sky," Zelensky said on the Telegram messaging app.
"The decisions made at the NATO summit in Washington, as well as those adopted during the Ramstein meetings regarding air defences for Ukraine, have still not been fully implemented," Zelensky said.
Source: Qatar Tribune