Russia says three more Ukraine villages captured

Russia said Monday its troops had captured three more villages in Ukraine, with Moscow trying to press its advantage on the battlefield amid stalled peace efforts.

Moscow's defence ministry said in a social media statement that its forces had seized the settlements of Novomykolaivka and Pryvilne in Zaporizhzhia region, and Yegorivka in Dnipropetrovsk region.

Russia claims the southern Zaporizhzhia region as its own, though has made no formal claim over the Dnipropetrovsk region, which its troops pushed into for the first time earlier this year.

Though it holds an advantage in manpower and weapons on the sprawling front, Russia's territorial advances have been slow and costly.

Over the last year, its army has captured around 6,000 square kilometres, or one percent of Ukraine's territory, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which works with the Critical Threats Project.

Ukraine's army said over the weekend that around 200 Russian troops had entered the city of Pokrovsk, which Moscow has been trying to encircle and capture for months.

Russia has "concentrated their main attack force" around the city, creating a "difficult" situation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday.

Russia is also targeting Kupiansk, a strategically important city in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

After a diplomatic flurry this year and the first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in more than three years, efforts to end the war have frozen with little sign of progress.

US President Donald Trump last week scrapped a planned summit with Russia's President Vladimir Putin and hit Moscow with his first significant sanctions package, targeting two top oil companies, after saying he was frustrated that Russia had not halted its offensive.