Russia has claimed to have captured another Dnipropetrovsk village in Ukraine.

Sept 2025 : Russia on Saturday has announced that it has captured a new village in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, which Moscow’s forces say they reached at the beginning of July. The defence ministry said its troops had seized the village of Novomykolaivka near the border with the Donetsk region — the epicentre of fighting on the front.

But, DeepState, an online battlefield map run by Ukrainian military analysts, said the village was still under Kyiv’s control. Russian forces are better equipped and vastly outnumber Ukrainian troops. They have been carrying out offensives in Ukraine for months and gaining ground across the eastern front.

At the end of August, Ukraine had for the first time acknowledged that Russian soldiers had entered the Dnipropetrovsk region, where Moscow had claimed advances at the start of the month. The Russian army currently controls about a fifth of Ukrainian territory. The Kremlin is demanding that Ukraine withdraw from its eastern Donbas region as a precondition for halting hostilities, something that Kyiv has rejected.

The Dnipropetrovsk region is not one of the five Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Crimea that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory. On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin wanted to “occupy all of Ukraine” and would not stop until his goal was achieved, even if Kyiv agreed to cede territory.

For its part, the Kremlin noted on Friday that peace negotiations with Kyiv were on “pause”, following the failure of several attempts in recent months to diplomatically resolve the conflict triggered by Russia’s full-scale offensive in February 2022. A Russian shelling attack on the town of Kostyantynivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region killed three people earlier Saturday, regional prosecutors said.

US President Donald Trump meanwhile, warned that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus.

Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there has been no significant progress towards ending the war launched by Russia’s February 2022 invasion. Russia’s army has gained territory and Putin has vowed to carry on fighting if his peace demands, including Ukraine ceding yet more land — are not met. “Our negotiators have the opportunity to communicate through channels. But for now, it is probably more accurate to talk about a pause” in talks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “You can’t wear rose-tinted glasses and expect that the negotiation process will yield immediate results”, he added.

Speaking at a conference in Kyiv, Zelensky said the West should not trust Putin. “Putin’s goal is to occupy all of Ukraine. And no matter what he tells anyone, it is clear that he has set the war machine in motion to such an extent that he simply cannot stop it unless he is forced to fundamentally change his personal goals”, Zelensky said.

The Ukrainian leader also called on allies to encourage China to use its leverage with Russia to stop Moscow’s offensive. Trump has repeatedly threatened Russia with additional sanctions if it does not halt the assault, but has failed to follow through, frustrating Ukraine. “It’s sort of running out and running out fast, but it does take two to tango”, Trump told Press Reporters when asked if his patience was being taxed by Russia’s refusal to end the conflict. “It’s amazing. When Putin wants to do it, Zelensky didn’t. When Zelensky wanted to do it, Putin didn’t. Now Zelensky wants to and Putin is a question mark. We’re going to have to come down very, very strong”.

Ukraine has ruled out making territorial concessions in exchange for a deal, and is calling for a Putin-Zelensky summit to break the deadlock. Putin has effectively ruled that out, and has threatened to target any Western soldiers that might be sent to Ukraine as peacekeepers without his approval.

Russia’s invasion has killed tens of thousands of people in Ukraine, forced millions from their homes and devastated much of the country’s east and south.

Tensions are high across Europe after Poland said on Wednesday (10^th. September) that 19 Russian drones had flown through its airspace, 03 of which were downed after Warsaw and NATO allies scrambled fighter jets. Poland and about 40 of its allies denounced the intrusion on Friday, calling on Moscow to avoid further “provocations”.

“Russia’s reckless actions represent a destabilising escalation”, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Bosacki said before an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council requested by his country.

NATO chief Mark Rutte said the alliance would reinforce its eastern flank following the incident, with Denmark, France, Britain, and Germany contributing “assets” in coming days.

Britain announced new sanctions against Russia targeting weapons, equipment suppliers and its “shadow fleet” of sanction-dodging ships. The European Union meanwhile extended sanctions against more than 2,500 Russian officials and entities for six months.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said it was not a “mistake” that the drones flew over his country, rejecting Trump’s suggestion it could have been an accident. Tusk warned this week that Poland was now closer to “open conflict” than at any point since World War II.

Russia has denied targeting Poland and said the country had failed to present any evidence that the drones were Russian. The military drills between Russia and neighboring Belarus, which started on Friday, have further ratcheted up tensions. The drills include exercises close to the border with Poland and Lithuania and in the Baltic and Barents seas.

Russia’s defense ministry posted a video showing heavy military equipment including armored vehicles, helicopters and navy ships taking part in the drills. Russia and Belarus have rejected accusations they pose a danger. But Poland said it would station around 40,000 troops near the Belarus border for the duration of the drills.

Team Maverick