KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian and Ukrainian officials are making contradictory claims of battlefield successes in their 4-year-old war, with Ukraine saying it has pushed Moscow’s forces back in some places on the front line but the Kremlin insisting that Russia’s invasion of its neighbor is making progress.
At the same time, Russia’s almost daily aerial attacks on civilian areas of Ukraine continue. Three powerful glide bombs struck the center of the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, killing four people, the head of the Donetsk regional military administration, Vadym Filashkin, said Tuesday. At least 16 other people, including a 14-year-old girl, were wounded.
Overnight drone strikes on three other Ukrainian cities wounded at least 17 people, including two children, emergency services said Tuesday.
Ukraine’s air force said that it shot down 122 out of 137 drones that Russia launched during the night.
U.S.-brokered talks between Russia and Ukraine are on hold as Washington’s attention is gripped by the Iran war, which has drawn the international spotlight from Ukraine’s plight as it strives to hold back Russia’s bigger army.
Despite being short of soldiers, Ukrainian forces have recently retaken nearly all the territory of the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk industrial region during a counteroffensive, driving Russian troops out of more than 400 square kilometers (150 square miles), Maj. Gen. Oleksandr Komarenko said in an interview published Tuesday by local media outlet RBC-Ukraine.
He described the overall situation on the front line as difficult but under control, with the heaviest fighting continuing near Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine and Oleksandrivka in the south, where he said Russian forces have concentrated their main effort.
There was no independent verification of his description of the military situation.
However, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said late Monday that recent Ukrainian counterattacks “are generating tactical, operational and strategic effects that may disrupt Russia’s spring-summer 2026 offensive campaign plan.”
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed Tuesday that Russian forces have extended their gains in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, whose capture Moscow has made one of the goals of its invasion. Ukraine controlled about 25% of the Donbas six months ago but it now holds just 15-17%, Putin said.
He made the claim during a meeting with Denis Pushilin, the Kremlin-appointed head of the parts of the Donbas controlled by Russian forces. It was not possible to verify the claim.
A Kremlin aide said that Putin told U.S. President Donald Trump late Monday that Russian forces are “advancing rather successfully” in Ukraine.
That progress should “encourage” Kyiv to “move toward a negotiated settlement of the conflict,” Yuri Ushakov told reporters — even though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly demanded a lasting peace deal and European governments accuse Putin of feigning interest in talks while the Russian military keeps hammering Ukraine.
The Kremlin is hoping that the Iran war will bring it a financial windfall from rising oil prices, distract global attention from the Ukraine war, run down Western arsenals and force the U.S. and its NATO allies to reduce military support for Kyiv.
Zelenskyy, meanwhile, is hoping that by supplying its cutting-edge and battle-tested drone technology to the United States and its Gulf partners for the war in the Middle East, Ukraine will win more international diplomatic leverage against Moscow.
He is also seeking a reciprocal supply of advanced American-made air defense missiles Ukraine needs to counter Russia’s attacks.
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