Russia claims to have captured a city in Ukraine, which Kyiv does not confirm

This announcement did not elicit any response from the Ukrainian authorities. Ukrainian officials typically comment on major battlefield defeats only days after Russia’s announcements.

Kurakhove is a key stronghold of the Ukrainian army on the front line in the partially occupied Donetsk region. The city has an industrial zone, a thermal power station and a reservoir. It is also on a highway connecting eastern and southern Ukraine.

In November, the Associated Press reported that the town probably had between 7,000 and 10,000 residents. Before the war, the population was twice as large. The city has been the target of incessant artillery attacks, multiple rocket launchers, powerful guided bombs and drones.

This year, Russia moved west in a slow and costly effort to seize all of Donetsk. Ukraine lacks troops on the front lines and is struggling to hold back the larger Russian army.

Russian forces are trying to close in on Pokrovsk, which is a key road junction and rail distribution center, supplying much of the Ukrainian front line.

In 2022, Moscow illegally annexed the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which constitute the Donbass industrial zone, as well as the Kherson and Zaporizhia provinces in the southeast. But Russian forces do not control any of the four.

Ukraine wants to quickly obtain new military aid from its Western partners. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday he hoped to secure further commitments later this week at a meeting with his partners in Germany.

Separately, the Russian Defense Ministry said Sunday that Ukraine had launched a new offensive in the Kursk region, where military analysts estimate that Kyiv recently lost 40% of what its forces had captured in a flash insurrection five months ago.

Russian officials claimed their forces had repelled the Ukrainian advance, but some reports from Russian military bloggers indicated that Moscow’s forces were under significant pressure.