MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia said on Sunday that its forces had moved forward sharply in Ukraine's south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region, taking two settlements as part of a major push aimed at taking control of the entire Zaporizhzhia region.
With a smaller army than Russia's, Ukraine has been grappling with how to bolster defences in the Donetsk region while keeping the rest of the front stable under intense artillery and drone attack from highly mobile Russian units.
Since advancing into the Dnipropetrovsk region in late June, Russian forces have been pushing there and in the neighbouring Zaporizhzhia region where its forces have moved forward along a relatively broad front by at least 30 km (19 miles) over the past six weeks, according to pro-Ukrainian maps.
Russia's defence ministry said that its forces had taken Mala Tokmachka and Rivnopillya, which put the southern towns of Huliaipole and Orikhiv in danger of being the target of Russian pincer movements.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
Ukrainian soldiers and commanders say they do not have enough troops to hold many defensive positions, despite thousands of drones flying above the battlefield which make advances by either side costly.
Russia controls about 19% of Ukraine, or 115,476 square km, up just one percentage point from two years ago. Moscow wants to gain control of all of the Donbas, which includes Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as the whole of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Russia says it controls about 75% of the Zaporizhzhia region which means Ukraine still holds about 7,000 square km there, including the city of Zaporizhzhia, which had a pre-war population of over 700,000 people.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
