Russia said Wednesday it had taken control of a village in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, a westward push that is piling additional pressure on Ukrainian forces across the sprawling front line.

The defense ministry said in a statement that its forces had taken the village of Zapadne on the western bank of the Oskil River, which for months had formed a natural front line between the armies.

Russia had earlier managed to establish a bridgehead on the western bank this year and Zapadne is located about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) west of the river, marking a significant gain.

The capture illustrates the mounting problems facing exhausted Ukrainian soldiers almost three years since Russia’s larger and better-resourced army invaded.

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Russian forces are advancing in the Kharkiv region to the north of the town of Kupiansk, one of the main places Ukraine recaptured in its 2022 offensive.

The Kharkiv region is under constant shelling and two men were killed one day earlier in the village of Goptivka, according to Governor Oleg Synegubov.

Ten others were wounded over the past 24 hours, he had said earlier.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged this week that “in the east, we have a difficult situation.”

Prosecutors in the Donetsk region said Wednesday that Russian shelling had killed at least one person and wounded seven more in the battered city of Kostiantynivka.

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