Russian forces have continued their advance into Ukraine during the past week and claim to have seized eight villages along a battlefront now 1,250km (780 miles) long.

“At this time, the Russian armed forces fully hold the strategic initiative,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told a meeting of military commanders on Tuesday, which marked his 73rd birthday.

Going from north to south, according to the Russian defence ministry, Ukraine ceded Otradnoye in the Kharkiv region, Mayskoye, Siversk Maly, Kuzminovka and Fedorovka in Donetsk, Verbovoye in Dnipropetrovsk and two villages in Zaporizhia, Novovasylivka and Novohryhorivka.

Putin claimed that Russian forces had seized almost 5,000 square kilometres (1,930 square miles) of Ukraine this year.

On September 25, the Institute for the Stu

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