Residents stand near their apartment buildings hit by a Russian drone strike in the town of Shakhtarske in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine October 19, 2025. Photo: Reuters (file)
MOSCOW:
The Russian army said Sunday it had captured two more villages in Ukraine’s south, where it has advanced in recent days as Kyiv scrambles to hold on to Pokrovsk further east.
Exhausted and outnumbered Ukrainian troops are struggling to fend off a larger Russian army as Moscow’s full-scale offensive nears its fourth winter.
The Russian defence ministry announced the capture of two villages, Mala Tokmachka and Rivnopillia, in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.
Mala Tokmachka is south-east of Zaporizhzhia city, and its capture endangers the nearby hub of Orikhiv.
Rivnopillia is in eastern Zaporizhzhia, where Russian forces now control territory to the north, east and south of the town of Gulyaipole.
Moscow’s defence ministry published aerial footage of Rivnopollia, showing Russian soldiers waving Russian flags over several damaged village houses.
Russia occupies large swathes of the Zaporizhzhia region — one of four Ukrainian regions the Kremlin claims as its own.
Kyiv said Sunday it had hit an oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region, a day after it said it struck another refinery in a region near Moscow.
“Units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces struck the Novokuibyshevk oil refinery,” the Ukrainian General Staff said.
Ukraine has struck Russian infrastructure throughout the conflict.
In eastern Ukraine, fighting centres around control of the key logistical hub Pokrovsk, which hundreds of Russian soldiers have infiltrated in recent weeks, weakening Ukrainian defences.
Peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow are currently deadlocked, and a planned Budapest summit between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin did not go ahead.
Ukraine Gas supply
Greece signed a deal with Ukraine on Sunday to supply US-origin liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the war-battered country whose energy infrastructure has been crippled by Russian strikes.
The agreement came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Athens at the start of a European tour aimed at shoring up his country’s defences and energy supply, as it enters another gruelling winter nearly four years into Russia’s invasion.
Exhausted and outnumbered Ukrainian troops are struggling to fend off Russian forces, and both sides have been attacking each other’s energy infrastructure power stations and oil refineries as the war drags on with no sign of peace talks.
Greece’s national gas company DEPA Commercial and its Ukrainian counterpart Naftogaz announced the deal, which will run from December 2025 until March 2026, following a meeting between Zelensky and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
The agreement “marks an essential step in strengthening regional energy cooperation and European energy security”, according to a joint statement.
The deal, signed at a ceremony attended by US ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle, will make it possible to “support Ukraine in the midst of a difficult winter”, Mitsotakis and Zelensky said.
Guilfoyle visited Zelensky at the Ukrainian embassy in Athens on Sunday, the state-run ERTNEWS tv channel reported.
“Relations between our countries are taking on a crucial new dimension: that of a new secure energy artery, stretching from south to north, from Greece to Ukraine,” Mitsotakis said.
He called the deal a “decisive step toward definitive energy independence from Russian gas” — a key goal for Europe, which has struggled to wean itself off imports.
