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On the ground, Ukraine, already lacking men and ammunition, is retreating on multiple sections of the front. This Saturday, the Kremlin claimed the capture of two localities in the east of the country.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed Saturday, November 2, the capture of two new villages in eastern Ukraine, where its troops are advancing rapidly, according to a press release. The forces “liberated” the large village of Kurakhivka, close to the industrial town of Kurakhove, in the eastern Donetsk region, which Russia is seeking to take, the ministry said. It also claimed the capture of the small village of Pershotravneve in the Kharkiv region, close to the eastern Lugansk region.
Nearly 500 km2 taken from Ukraine in October
The Russian army took 478 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in October, the largest territorial gain in a month since March 2022 and the first weeks of the conflict, according to an AFP analysis of data from the American Institute for Study of War (ISW).
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War in Ukraine: almost 1,000 days of conflict, kyiv struggling in the face of Russian advances
On the ground, Ukraine, already lacking men and ammunition, is retreating on multiple sections of the front. And Americans and Europeans are greatly preventing Ukraine from using the missiles they have delivered on targets on Russian territory, for fear of provoking an escalation by the Kremlin. But for kyiv, it is the absence of Western firmness which encourages Vladimir Putin to escalate. Last Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attacked the “zero” reaction of Westerners to the deployment of North Korean soldiers and the internationalization of the war.
