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.

The plant manufactures countermeasure stations for front-line aircraft and is a major part of Russia's military-industrial complex.

Russia has advanced around Pokrovsk for many months, but has so far failed to entirely encircle or seize control of the city.

Soldiers panicked, drones surveilling Russian forces went dark, and long-range artillery units struggled to hit targets.

Russia now controls more than two-thirds of Ukraine’s Donetsk region — the main theater of the ground war. Russian forces have carved out a 10-mile-deep pocket around the Ukrainian troops defending the crucial city of Kostiantynivka, partly surrounding them from the east, south and west.

The reactions to the Trump administration’s decision to pause some weapons shipments to Ukraine couldn’t be more illustrative of the conflict: welcomed by the Kremlin, branded “inhumane” by Kyiv.