Ukraine on Friday said it had retaken two settlements in the northern Kharkiv region and pushed Russian troops back in Kupiansk, a key railway hub that Russia claimed to have seized last month.
"Kindrashivka, Radkivka, and their outskirts have been liberated, as well as a number of neighbourhoods in northern Kupiansk," the Khartia army corps said on social media.
The Russian army claimed at the end of November to have again captured the city of Kupiansk, which it first seized in 2022 before Ukrainian forces retook it in the fall that year.
Russia has in recent months touted advances on the battlefield, where Ukrainian forces are on the back foot.
Kyiv has repeatedly dismissed Russian claims of sweeping advances as attempts from Moscow to promote a narrative that Ukraine faces imminent collapse, to influence negotiations to end the war.
Washington is now pushing Kyiv to make major territorial concessions as part of its plan to end the nearly four-year war.
"Russians operate much more effectively in the information space than any of our partners and spread information that doesn't reflect reality," President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters, including from AFP, on Thursday.
"We have to refute outright nonsense," he added.
Russia has not claimed to have formally annexed the Kharkiv region, where Kupiansk is located, and according to Zelensky, the latest version of a draft US plan to end the war could see Russia withdraw from these areas, with Ukraine pulling out of the Donetsk region.
