Russia and Ukraine both claim front-line progress with US-brokered talks on hold

KYIV, Ukraine, March 11 ------ Russian and Ukrainian officials made rival claims of battlefield successes in their 4-year-old war, with Ukraine saying it pushed Moscow’s forces back across places on the front line and the Kremlin insisting Russia’s invasion of its neighbor is making progress. At the same time, Russia’s almost daily attacks on Ukrainian civilian areas continued, killing several people, as Washington postponed its sponsored talks between the two sides due to the war in the Middle East.

Russia and Ukraine tout contradictory success claims

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.

Russian troops are poorly supplied and lack support, Andrii Kyianenko, the deputy battalion commander of the 425th Separate Assault Regiment “Skelia” deployed in the area, told The Associated Press. Ukrainian soldiers have broken through Russian defenses and advanced more than 10 kilometers (6 miles), he said. The evolving military situation couldn’t be independently verified, but the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, observed 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% to 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.

The Kremlin foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, 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,” Ushakov told reporters — even though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly demanded a lasting peace deal and European governments accuse Putin of feigning interest in talks while the Russian military keeps hammering Ukraine.

Source: apnews.com