Russian forces are in full control of the town of Konstantinovka in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region, the first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Gen. Sergei Rudskoy, announced at a press conference, quoted by TASS, BTA reported.
"The town is currently under our full control. Units of the Southern Group of Forces are completing the clearing of neighborhoods from small groups and single Ukrainian fighters who may be hiding in basements and ruins," he said.
The military said that the settlement is key to the last positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Donbas. According to him, "after 2014, Kiev created a system of defensive positions in Konstantinovka and actively strengthened it after the fall of Bakhmut", turning it into the most fortified defensive area of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Gen. Rudskoy said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces were pushed back several kilometers from Konstantinovka, despite all their efforts to hold it.
Ukraine still controls the strategically important eastern city of Konstantinovka, the country's President Volodymyr Zelensky and the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said earlier today, denying Russian claims that the settlement had fallen under their control, Reuters reported.
„Of course, it is not true. This is another Russian lie, an attempt to create some news“, Zelensky said on the social network “Ex“. "If Konstantinovka were under Russian control, then perhaps Putin would have no problem meeting there and finding a diplomatic way to finally end this war," he added.
"We deny this. These are false allegations," a General Staff official said. They added that Konstantinovka remains under the control of the Armed Forces of the Ukraine. "Units of the 19th Army Corps of the Eastern Group continue to conduct defensive operations along designated lines in the city and its outskirts," the General Staff said.