Russian forces have advanced rapidly in the coal-mining town of Selidovo in eastern Ukraine. This is what Russian media and military bloggers claim, reports "Reuters".
Moscow's troops are trying to establish control over the entire Donbass region.
The capture of Selidovo will pave the way for a Russian advance on the key logistics center of Pokrovsk, located about 20 km to the northwest.
"The enemy's defense suddenly collapsed," said Yuri Podolyak, a prominent Ukrainian-born pro-Russian military blogger. Other pro-Russian bloggers gave similar accounts and stated that Russia already controls part of Selidovo.
Newspaper "Moscow Komsomol" it says that Russian forces are approaching the center of the city, which before the war had a population of over 20,000.
Ukraine's General Staff reports that the most intense Russian attacks along the entire front line are currently taking place in the Selidovo region, and that Russia is using both fighter and bomber aircraft to support its advance there.
The General Staff did not specify whether the Russians were in the city or whether Ukrainian forces had retreated.
A Ukrainian frontline mapping project known as DeepState has shown on its map Russian forces controlling the eastern outskirts of Selidovo, with a significant portion of its center assessed as a contested "grey zone".
Russian forces, which President Vladimir Putin ordered to enter Ukraine in February 2022, advanced in September at their fastest pace since March 2022, even as Ukraine seized part of Russia's Kursk region.
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Russia controls about a fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, about 80 percent of Donbas, a coal and steel zone that includes Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as more than 70 percent of Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.