Capturing Selydove would pave the way for a Russian advance on the key logistical hub of Pokrovsk, located about 20km northwest of Selydove.

“The enemy’s defences crumbled suddenly,” said Yuri Podolyaka, a prominent Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger. Other pro-Russian bloggers gave similar accounts, and said that Russia was now in control of part of Selydove.

The Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper said that Russian forces were approaching the centre of Selydove, which had a population of over 20,000 before the war.

Ukraine’s general staff said the most intense Russian assaults along the entire front line were currently taking place in the vicinity of Selydove, and that Russia used both fighter and bomber aircraft to support its attack there.

The general staff did not say whether or not the Russians were in the town or if Ukrainian forces had fallen back.

A Ukrainian frontline mapping project known as DeepState showed in its map Russian forces controlling the eastern outskirts of Selydove, while a significant chunk of its centre was assessed as a disputed “grey zone”.

Russian forces, which President Vladimir Putin ordered into Ukraine in February 2022, advanced in September at their fastest rate since March 2022, according to open source data, despite Ukraine taking a part of Russia’s Kursk region.

Russia controls about one fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea which it annexed in 2014, about 80% of the Donbas – a coal-and-steel zone comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk regions – and more than 70% of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.