Russia says it captured a southern Ukraine village in a push earlier than winter comes

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia said Monday it has captured the village of Levadne in southern Ukraine as it probes for weaknesses along the war ’s roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, including in eastern areas which currently are the main focus of Moscow’s military effort before winter arrives.

Ukrainian authorities, meanwhile, reported no nighttime Shahed drone attacks on the country for the first time in about six weeks, after saying five days ago it struck a Shahed storage facility in Russia’s Krasnodar region where some 400 drones reportedly were being kept.

In Moscow, the Defense Ministry said Russian troops took Levadne in the Zaporizhzhia region. Levadne was seized by the Russians early during the war but was recaptured by Ukrainian forces during a counteroffensive in the summer of 2023.

Ukraine’s troops are straining to hold back Russia’s military might, especially in the eastern Donetsk region, and don’t have the manpower or weaponry to launch their own offensive. Though Russia’s gains have been incremental, its steady forward movement is slowly adding up as the Ukrainians are pushed backward.

Ukraine says it needs more Western help to have a chance of holding back Russia’s invasion.

Russia illegally annexed four regions of Ukraine, including Zaporizhzhia, in September 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from all four regions as the main condition for a prospective peace deal, a demand Ukraine and the West have rejected.

The Ukrainian General Staff last week reported a direct hit on the Shahed drone warehouse inside Russia.

“The destruction of the Shahed drone storage base will significantly reduce the ability of Russian occupiers to terrorize peaceful residents of Ukrainian cities and villages,” it said at the time.

Ukrainian officials are keen to show the West they are not giving up the fight against their much bigger neighbor. An incursion into Russia’s Kursk border region has put Ukrainian troops on Russian soil for more than two months.

Ukraine has also deployed sophisticated new long-range drones to strike targets inside Russia, including airfields, oil refineries and ammunition depots.

The Ukrainian Main Directorate of Intelligence said Monday it destroyed a Russian military transport aircraft, a Tu-134, at a military airfield in Russia’s Orenburg region.