JAKARTA - Russia announced it had captured a village near the Ukrainian industrial city of Sievierodonetsk, a key target in Moscow's campaign for control of the country's east, on Sunday, with the head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) predicting the war could last for years.
Russia's Defense Ministry said it had won Metyolkine, a settlement of less than 800 people before the war started. Russia's state news agency TASS reported that many Ukrainian fighters had surrendered there.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's military said Russia had "partial success" in the area, which is about six kilometers (four miles) southeast of Sievierdonetsk.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said supplying advanced weaponry to Ukrainian forces would increase the chances of liberating the eastern Donbas region from Russian control, the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported.
Having failed to capture the capital Kyiv early in the war, Russian forces have focused on trying to take complete control of the Donbas, parts of which had been held by Russian-backed separatists before the February 24 invasion.
"We have to prepare for the facts, (the war) could take years. We must not give up on supporting Ukraine," Stoltenberg was quoted as saying.
Russia said on Sunday its offensive to win Sievierdonetsk itself was a success.
"The attack on Sievierodonetsk is progressing successfully," Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a video statement. He said the Metyolkine settlement, on the eastern outskirts of the city, had been captured
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Meanwhile, Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai told Ukrainian TV the fighting made evacuation of the city impossible, but "all Russian claims that they control the city are lies. They control the main part of the city, but not the whole city."
It is known that among communities around Sievierdonestk, Gaidai told Ukrainian TV that the Russian attack on Toshkivka, 35 km (20 miles) south, "had a high degree of success." Reuters was unable to independently confirm the battlefield accounts.
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