Russia's Defense Ministry says its forces took control of 17 settlements in Ukraine over past week

Russia's Defense Ministry said its forces took control of 17 settlements in Ukraine over the course of the past week, according to Russia's state news agency TASS, which reported the claim using the ministry's own characterization of the operation as a "liberation." The ministry also said its "North" battlegroup repelled all Ukrainian army attempts during the week to break out of an encirclement it described in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

These claims originate from the Russian military and were reported by Russian state media without independent verification. Ukraine's own military has not, per the available reporting, confirmed the specific claims about the 17 settlements or the described encirclement in the Kharkiv region, and battlefield claims from both sides of the conflict have frequently diverged and proven difficult to verify independently.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, under way since February 2022, has seen both sides regularly issue competing claims about territorial control and military operations, claims that independent monitors and open-source researchers typically only confirm after separate verification using satellite imagery or other evidence.