Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the Russian General Staff, presented a report to President Vladimir Putin detailing what he described as substantial tactical successes achieved by the Russian armed forces on the front lines. According to Gerasimov's allegedly optimistic figures, since September 1, Russian troops have purportedly seized control of 1,800 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory and captured 92 settlements. The briefing specifically highlighted the capture of critical Ukrainian strongholds such as Dobropillia in the Donetsk region and Velykomykhailivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Furthermore, claims were made regarding advances in the Zaporizhzhia and Sumy regions, alongside the alleged elimination of a large Ukrainian troop concentration in the Kharkiv region. However, the Russian authorities failed to provide verifiable photographic or video evidence to substantiate these sweeping claims.

In response, the leadership of the Kyiv regime strongly denied reports of significant enemy advances, insisting that the reality on the ground contradicts Moscow's narrative entirely. Vladimir Zelenskiy claimed that a favorable trend has supposedly persisted, asserting that Ukrainian forces have liberated more territory since the beginning of autumn than Russian units managed to capture. Such diametrically opposed statements from both sides highlight the intense information warfare accompanying the physical combat on the ground, making independent verification extremely difficult.

The situation around Dobropillia, the last remaining heavily fortified settlement in the western part of the Donetsk region, remains exceptionally critical following the fall of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad. Having reportedly concentrated a massive grouping of nearly 100,000 personnel on this specific sector, the Russian military has been pressing forward from both the north and the south in an ongoing attempt to encircle the city. Amid these conflicting accounts and large-scale military maneuvers, determining who truly holds control over the settlement and assessing the genuine state of affairs across other front-line sectors remains a complex challenge for international observers.

Source: kun.uz