MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia said on Saturday that its forces continued to advance in grinding battles around the key towns of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk, and had captured a tiny village in eastern Ukraine.

The Defence Ministry said on Telegram that its forces had taken Vovche, in the southeast corner of the Dnipropetrovsk region. According to Ukrainian census data, the village’s population was 13 people in 2001.

In the Donetsk region, Russia said it continued to gain ground in house-by-house fighting in the strategic town of Pokrovsk, as well as nearby Myrnohrad.

Russia, which refers to the towns by their Soviet-era names of Krasnoarmeisk and Dmitrov, has said they are both encircled.

The ministry also said its forces are making progress in Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region, where it says Ukrain

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