Russian troops keep pushing into Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, claiming they have reached the administrative border. Kyiv denied their presence in central Ukrainian region, saying this is not the first time Moscow troops make similar claims.
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Kyiv has denied Moscow’s claims that Russian troops have reached the administrative border with the Dnipropetrovsk region on Sunday.
Ukraine’s Southern Defence Forces reported that Russian troops are indeed pushing towards Dnipropetrovsk region and "have not abandoned their plans to enter the region," but Ukrainian forces are "holding this section of the front."
On Sunday, Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed its forces entered Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, which borders its Donetsk region.
Major Andrii Kovalev, a spokesperson for Ukraine's General Staff, denied the veracity of the Kremlin's claims.
"The information is not true. Fighting is ongoing in the Donetsk region. The enemy did not enter the Dnipropetrovsk region," Major Kovalev said.
On 21 May, Moscow made similar claims, which Kyiv also denied as false.
Serhii Lysak, head of the regional military administration, called the reports "fake," stating the photos allegedly showing Russian soldiers in the area were altered.
The Ukrainian monitoring project DeepState analysed one such image and determined it had been taken in Troitske, a village in the Donetsk region.
As a precautionary measure, the Dnipropetrovsk region began mandatory evacuations of children and families from four villages close to the frontlines located 5 to 15 kilometres away from Russian positions at the end of April.
Bordering the Donetsk region in the east and Zaporizhzhia region in the south, Dnipropetrovsk is not among the five Ukrainian regions Moscow claimed to have annexed.
Its regional capital Dnipro has become a crucially important hub for military and humanitarian operations for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Deputy Chief of Staff Pavlo Palisa said on Friday that Russia aims to occupy all Ukrainian territory east of the Dnipro River and advance toward Odesa and Mykolaiv in a broader plan to sever Ukraine's access to the Black Sea, amid a renewed summer offensive.