Russia takes villages in key areas of east Ukraine front

Russia said Friday its forces had captured a village near the embattled supply hub of Pokrovsk and another near the industrial town of Kurakhove, gaining ground in two key areas of the east Ukraine front line.

Moscow has been advancing in east Ukraine for months, pressing its advantage against overstretched and outgunned Ukrainian soldiers.

Russian army units "liberated the settlements" of Sukhi Yaly and Pustynka in the eastern Donetsk region, Moscow's defence ministry said in a daily briefing.

Sukhi Yaly is about 13 kilometres (eight miles) southwest of Kurakhove, a strategic industrial town on the banks of a reservoir that Moscow is trying to encircle.

Pustynka lies just south of Pokrovsk, an embattled logistics hub at the intersection of rail and road routes supplying Ukrainian troops across the front line.

The nearly three-year conflict has escalated sharply in recent months, with Kyiv deploying US and British-supplied long-range missiles in attacks on Russian soil and Moscow firing an experimental hypersonic weapon at Ukraine in response.

Ukraine has been trying to put itself in as secure a position as possible ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House in January.

The Republican has promised to swiftly end the conflict once in power, raising concerns in Kyiv that Ukraine will be forced to make massive territorial concessions to Moscow.