Ukraine reported on Wednesday that Russian soldiers had advanced farther east and taken numerous villages as part of Moscow’s operation to regain control of Donbas.

Moscow said earlier this month that it would withdraw its invading soldiers from the capital Kyiv in order to concentrate its military efforts on seizing Donetsk and Lugansk in east Ukraine.

Russian soldiers forced Kyiv’s army out of Velyka Komyshuvakha and Zavody in the northeastern Kharkiv area and took control of Zarichne and Novotoshkivske in Donetsk, according to the defence ministry.

Zarichne is only 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Kramatorsk, where Russian strikes last month on a railway station transporting inhabitants to safety in the east killed scores.

Russian soldiers are “continuing an offensive in the direction of Nyzhnye and Orikhiv” in central Zaporizhzhia, according to the defence ministry.

Since 2014, when the Kremlin annexed the Crimean peninsula following mass protests that deposed Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly president, pro-Russian rebels have ruled the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

The attack in the east, according to Russia, will establish a land boundary between the separatist-held region and the Black Sea peninsula.

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