The Ukrainian military has appeared to acknowledge that the small town of Niu-York has fallen to Russia’s advance in the east, as the embattled city of Toretsk now comes under greater threat.

Niu-York’s status changed on Thursday situation report issued by the general staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The town was no longer referred to as contested, an apparent acknowledgement that it has fallen to Russia’s advance in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

Ukrainian war bloggers and Russian Defence Minister Andrey Belousov said on Wednesday that Russian forces were in complete control of Niu-York.

The industrial city of Toretsk, which has long been the target of fierce Russian attacks, is now at even greater risk.

The Ukrainian general staff said fighting was continuing in Pivnichne and Zalizne, two towns to the east of Toretsk, and also in the city itself.

Drone attack caused fire at Russian military base, overnight Ukrainian drone attack caused a fire to erupt at a military base in southern Russia, a regional governor said on Thursday.

Andrey Bocharov, the governor of the Volgograd region, said air defences had repelled most of the unmanned aircraft but that a downed drone had crashed and sparked the blaze.

The governor said that the premises of a military site were hit, without offering further details.

Russian war bloggers said the target was the Marinovka Air Base, located about 45 kilometres from the regional capital Volgograd.

The Russian state news agency TASS reported that air traffic was temporarily restricted at the civilian airport in Volgograd due to the risk posed by the drones.

In Moscow, the Russian Defence Ministry said 28 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted overnight, 13 of which were over the Volgograd region alone.

In recent months, Ukraine has expanded the production of long-range combat drones.

The unmanned aerial vehicles are being deployed in swarms against major infrastructure such as oil facilities, but increasingly against military targets too.

Russian jets, ammunition depots and fuel supplies have been hit.

But the damage pales in comparison to the devastation caused by Russia’s daily missile and drone strikes against Ukraine, which frequently hit energy infrastructure, civilian facilities and private residences. 

(Xinhua/NAN)