Russia says it has captured two villages in Ukraine, Ukraine reports heavy fighting

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia's Defence Ministry said on Saturday its forces had captured two more villages in eastern Ukraine, including one in Dnipropetrovsk region where Moscow says its troops have begun to make advances.

Ukrainian forces made no acknowledgement that the villages had changed hands, but reported heavy fighting.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in an assessment of the situation along the 1,000-km (620-mile) front line, said the logistics hub of Pokrovsk remained the focal point of battles.

He also said Ukrainian forces had recorded "successful actions" in Sumy region on Ukraine's northern border, where Russian forces have established a foothold in recent weeks.

Reuters could not independently confirm battlefield accounts from either side.

The front-line clashes were reported three days after the two sides held their third direct meeting in Turkey aimed at resolving the nearly 3-1/2-year-old war.

Both sides reported progress in swaps of prisoners or the remains of war dead, but no breakthroughs were announced in terms of a ceasefire or a meeting of the two countries' leaders.

Russia's military has been reporting nearly daily the capture of new villages in its slow advance westward.

The Russian Defence Ministry said its forces had taken control of Zelenyi Hai in Donetsk region and Maliivka, a village just inside Dnipropetrovsk region.

The ministry described Zelenyi Hai as "a major stronghold of Ukrainian formations in this section of the front (that) covered approaches to the administrative border of the Dnipropetrovsk region".

Dnipropetrovsk is not among the five regions that Moscow claims as its own -- Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and the Crimean peninsula, annexed in 2014.

Russia last month said its forces had crossed into Dnipropetrovsk region and now says it holds at least two villages. Ukraine's military has for weeks dismissed any notion that Russian troops hold territory in the region.

The Ukrainian military's General Staff, in a late evening report, mentioned Zelenyi Hai as one of several frontline areas that had come under Russian attack 11 times over the past 24 hours. It said Maliivka was one of several villages where 10 Russian attacks had been halted.

Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address, said Ukraine's top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, had identified Pokrovsk as an area

requiring "special attention" under constant attack.

A military spokesperson, Viktor Trehubov, told national television that Russian forces were attacking Pokrovsk in "a small torrent...that simply does not stop".

(Reporting by ReutersEditing by Peter Graff and David Gregorio)