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Heavy fighting between Ukrainian soldiers and invading Russian forces was reported early on September 18 in and around Klishchiyivka, a key village in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian military said.

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The fighting comes a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced that Ukrainian forces had liberated Klishchiyivka, a village on the southern flank of Bakhmut.

The area southwest of Bakhmut has been a focus of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the east throughout the summer. Zelenskiy’s announcement came two days after Ukraine’s military said it had gained control of a small nearby village, Andriyivka, about 10 kilometers southwest of Bakhmut.

If both villages are retaken, it could allow Ukraine’s troops to attack Bakhmut from the north and south, allowing them to liberate the ruined town that was captured by Russia after months of bloody fighting and hailed by the Kremlin as a major victory at the time.

Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar on September 18 repeated that Ukrainian troops had liberated both Klishchiyivka and Andriyivka.

Kyiv’s troops have liberated 51 square kilometers near Bakhmut since the start of the counteroffensive, Malyar said in a post on Telegram.

Further south in the Donetsk region, Ukrainian troops continued to hold back a Russian offensive toward the towns of Avdiyivka and Maryinka, Malyar said.

Ukrainian forces, who are trying to advance toward the Sea of Azov in a southern drive intended to split Russian forces, retook 5.2 square kilometers in the past week, Malyar said.

Overall, Ukraine regained more than 260 square kilometers in the south during the counteroffensive, she said.

In its daily update on September 18, the Ukrainian military said it forces were continuing “assault operations” in the Klishchiyivka region, “inflicting significant losses on the enemy.”

A day earlier on September 17, the Russian Defense Ministry said in its daily briefing that its forces kept up their attacks near Klishchiyivka, which had a prewar population of around 400.

Elsewhere, a 72-year-old man and an elderly woman were killed as a result of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s southern Kherson region overnight, according to a local official.

Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson region military administration, said three others were injured, including a 60-year-old man and a 63-year-old woman.

Ukraine’s military also said it had destroyed all 17 cruise missiles launched from Russia’s southwest Volgograd region. The missiles were destroyed in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, and Khmelnytskiy regions, the Ukrainian military said.

The Ukrainian Air Force said air defenses had destroyed 18 out of 24 Russian military drones that were reportedly heading in the direction of the Mykolayiv and Odesa regions.

Meanwhile, Colonel Andrei Kondrashkin, the commander of Russia’s 31st Paratroopers Brigade, has been killed in ongoing clashes with Ukrainian armed forces, a commander of the Russian-backed separatists’ troops in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donbas said on September 18.

Aleksandr Khodakovsky did not provide any details. Russa’s Defense Ministry has yet to confirm the statement.

Ukrainian media reports say Kondrashkin’s military unit is currently near the city of Bakhmut that has been the epicenter of intensive clashes between occupying Russian troops and Ukrainian military for months.

With reporting from AP and Reuters