Russia has been making swift advances in the eastern Donetsk region for weeks, taking dozens of towns and villages.

The Russian defence ministry said its forces in the Donetsk region had "liberated" the large village of Kurakhivka close to the industrial town of Kurakhove, which Russia is also aiming to capture.

It likewise claimed the small village of Pershotravneve in the Kharkiv region close to the eastern Lugansk region.

The Russian army took 478 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory in October, a record since the first weeks of the conflict in March 2022, according to an AFP analysis of data from the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW).