Russia’s defense ministry said on Saturday that its forces had taken control of the settlement of Lozuvatske in the Pokrovsk sector of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, site of some of the most heated frontline battles in the 29-month-old war.

Ukraine’s General Staff made no mention of the settlement in its reports but noted that the area around the settlement was gripped by heavy fighting. Unofficial military bloggers have reported the loss of at least two other localities in the sector.

Russian forces have been slowly advancing through the Donetsk region in Ukraine’s east, with steady, incremental gains since seizing the key town of Avdiivka in Donetsk region in February.

The Russian defense ministry said its center grouping of forces had captured Lozuvatske, northwest of the Russian-held regional center of Donetsk.

It also reported that its forces had launched strikes on other localities in the sector and repelled three Ukrainian counterattacks.

Ukraine says it repelled 17 attacks

Ukrainian officials have reported for weeks that the Pokrovsk sector is gripped by the heaviest fighting along the 1,000-kilometer (621.3 miles) front line.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed the sector twice on Thursday with his top commander, Olexandr Syrskyi.

The Ukrainian General Staff on Saturday reported its forces had repelled 17 attacks in the area, with 10 clashes still proceeding.

“The situation is difficult, but under the control of the armed forces,” the report said.

Ukraine’s popular unofficial military blog DeepState made no reference to Lozuvatske in its latest report, but in the past two days has reported the fall of two villages in the sector, Prohres and Vovche.

Official Ukrainian accounts have made no such acknowledgement.

Four civilians killed

Early on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said Russian shelling killed at least four civilians in separate regions of Ukraine.

In the northeastern Sumy region, a border area frequently under Russian attack, a 14-year-old boy was killed and 12 other people were wounded in a rocket attack on the small town of Hlukhiv, the Ukraine prosecutor’s office said.

The attack on the town near the Russian border hit apartment blocks, houses, an educational institution, a shop and vehicles just after noon. Six of the wounded were children.

In the Kharkiv region, another frequent Russian target further east, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said one person was killed when a private home near the city of Chuhuiv came under fire.

And in the Kherson region, in Ukraine’s south, officials said two people were killed, one in the administrative center also called Kherson, and one near the city of Beryslav, to the north.

The Kherson region was occupied in the first days of Russia’s February 2022 invasion, but Ukrainian troops recaptured large swaths of it later in the year. Russian troops continue to shell Ukrainian-held areas from new positions.

Reuters could not confirm the accounts independently and there was no comment on the incidents from Russian officials.