Ukrainian forces are restraining one of Russia's most powerful offensives since the start of Moscow's full-scale invasion on its smaller neighbour, the top commander of Kyiv's forces says.
Russian troops advanced in September at their fastest rate since March 2022, the month after President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion, according to open-source data. Ukraine in August took part of Russia's Kursk region.
"The Armed Forces of Ukraine are holding back one of the most powerful Russian offensives from launching a full-scale invasion," General Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
After failing to capture the capital Kyiv early in the war and win a decisive victory, Putin scaled back his war ambitions to taking the Donbas industrial heartland in Ukraine's east, which covers the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
Donbas has since become the war's main theatre, where some of biggest battles in Europe for generations have taken place and where thousands of troops on each side have died.
On Saturday, Moscow said it has taken two more settlements along the Donbas frontline.
In the week of October 20-27 alone, Russia captured nearly 200sq/km of Ukrainian territory, according to the Russian media group Agentstvo, which analysed Ukrainian open-source maps.
The war is entering what Russian analysts say is its most dangerous phase as Moscow's forces advance, North Korea sends troops to Russia and the West ponders how the conflict will end.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been travelling the world lobbying NATO countries to allow Kyiv the use of the long-range missiles they have provided to strike targets deep inside Russia.
Ukraine is bracing for what could be the toughest winter of the war after long-range Russian airstrikes destroyed what officials say is about half of its power generating capacity.
Late on Saturday Kyiv's Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Ukraine's air defence units were trying to repel a Russian air attack on Kyiv.
"There was an explosion in the suburbs of Kyiv," Klitschko said.
"Air defence forces operating in the capital and its region. Stay in shelters!"
Debris from downed drones struck six city districts, wounding a police officer, damaging residential buildings and starting fires, according to city military administrator Serhiy Popko.
"Another night. Another air-raid alert. Another drone attack. The armed forces of the Russian Federation attacked Kyiv again according to their old and familiar tactics," Popko wrote on social media on Saturday.
All the drones aimed at Kyiv had been shot down, he said.
Ukrainian energy provider DTEK said a high-voltage line powering the capital and two distribution networks in the Kyiv region had been damaged.
DTEK said in a statement that electricity had mostly been restored and that repairs were underway.
Reuters correspondents reported hearing explosions in and around the city during an air-raid alert that lasted more than five hours.
One drone was seen flying low over the city amid the din of automatic-weapons fire.
Ukraine's military reported that air defences had destroyed 39 out of 71 Russian drones that had been launched, and that another 21 had been "locationally lost".
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said strikes were also reported in the central Poltava and northeastern Sumy and Kharkiv regions.
"This year, we have faced the threat of Shahed drones almost every night — sometimes in the morning, and even during the day," he wrote on social media, referring to the Iranian-made attack drones used by Russia.
Russian forces have carried out regular air strikes on Ukrainian towns and cities behind the front lines of the war which began when Russia invaded its neighbour in February 2022.
Kyiv's military said on Friday that Moscow's forces had launched more than 2000 drones at civilian and military targets across Ukraine in October alone.
Russia has denied aiming at civilians and said power facilities are legitimate targets when they are part of Ukrainian military infrastructure.
