More than two years into the war, the battlefield map of Ukraine remains in constant flux, redrawn daily by rival claims. On Sunday, the Russian Defence Ministry announced the capture of Filia, a settlement in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, a province not even among the four territories Moscow illegally annexed months after the 2022 invasion.
Yet Kyiv, refusing to concede, countered with its own updates. Ukraine’s top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, declared that Ukrainian troops had retaken three villages in Donetsk: Mykhailivka, Zelenyi Hai, and Volodymyrivka.
The war, once defined by sweeping offensives, has now settled into a punishing struggle where villages most people outside Ukraine have never heard of become symbols of resilience and loss.
Russia’s Push Beyond Its Claimed Borders
Filia’s capture, if verified, would mark a deeper Russian move into Dnipropetrovsk, a region not officially part of its declared annexations. Moscow has increasingly touted advances here as proof it is expanding its battlefield advantage.
But Ukraine has offered no acknowledgment of Filia’s fall, leaving the claim hanging in the fog of war. Independent verification of either side’s assertions remains elusive — a hallmark of this grinding conflict where truth is often as contested as terrain.
Ukraine’s Counterpunch in Donetsk
While Moscow trumpeted its push westward, Syrskyi painted a bleaker picture closer to Donetsk. Fighting around Pokrovsk, long seen as one of Russia’s priority targets, remains “truly difficult,” he admitted.
Still, Ukrainian forces claim to have regained ground:
- Zelenyi Hai, lying just beside Dnipropetrovsk’s border,
- Mykhailivka and Volodymyrivka, near embattled Pokrovsk.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, HUR, also said it had helped retake Novomykhailivka, south of Pokrovsk, in a joint operation. Each name on this growing list is less about geography and more about survival, proof that Ukraine is not yielding quietly.
The Human Toll Beyond the Frontlines
Far from Donetsk, the war’s cruelty was felt again in Kharkiv region. In Kupiansk, a town that has switched hands multiple times since 2022, a Russian artillery strike killed a woman and wounded two others. The town, retaken by Ukraine last year, has become a frequent target, a reminder that even reclaimed land never feels entirely secure.
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A War of Inches, A War Without End
What emerges from both Moscow’s and Kyiv’s reports is less a sweeping advance than a war of attrition, villages won and lost, families uprooted, lives destroyed. For Russia, even minor gains in regions like Dnipropetrovsk allow it to claim momentum. For Ukraine, every recaptured settlement is proof of resilience, a refusal to bow under relentless pressure.
But the truth is that neither side seems capable of a decisive breakthrough. Instead, the war has become a tug of war across fields, forests, and forgotten towns — with the balance shifting daily, but the suffering constant.
