The war in Ukraine is entering a new dangerous phase. Russian troops continue to advance in the Ukrainian region of Donetsk and are now only seven kilometers from the central Ukrainian province of Dnepropetrovsk, the German newspaper Bild reports.
Since the beginning of the year, the Russian army has been advancing rapidly towards central Ukraine and has already captured eight villages south of the strategically important city of Pokrovsk. Their advance seems to be undeniable, Bild writes, citing its correspondents in the region.
Instead of directly attacking the city of 65,000 inhabitants, Russian units are surrounding it from the south - a strategy that has been successfully used many times to overcome the numerically weaker defenders of Ukraine.
However, they are encountering almost no resistance on the ground, and are mainly attacked by Ukrainian drones. Since Ukraine lacks sufficient ground troops, drone attacks only slow down the Russian advance, but do not stop it.
Within days, the war could spread to the central Ukrainian region of Dnipropetrovsk, which, in addition to its three million inhabitants, also hosts hundreds of thousands of refugees from war zones to the east and south.
Russian troops are also advancing south, having completely captured the former Ukrainian town of Kurekhove, with a population of 18,000, as well as the village of Shevchenko. From here, it is still 20 kilometers to the regional border between Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk, the main objective of the Russian army in the region.