An artilleryman of the 15th ‘Kara-Dag’ Brigade of the Operational Assignment of the National Guard of Ukraine fires a D-30 howitzer towards Russian troops, at a position, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, near the frontline town of Kupiansk in Kharkiv region, Ukraine on October 17, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Russia said on Friday (October 17, 2025) it had captured three villages in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions, including areas Kyiv had retaken three years ago in a surprise counter-offensive.
The Moscow military command said it had captured the villages of Pishchane and Tykhe in Kharkiv and Pryvillia in Dnipropetrovsk.
The Russian army is grinding through eastern Ukraine in costly metre-for-metre battles for small settlements, largely devastated by fighting since February 2022 and with a few inhabitants left.
Ukraine had recaptured large parts of the Kharkiv region, including Pishchane, in a swift campaign in autumn 2022, triggering a Russian military draft for the first time since World War II.
But now, the Russian forces are slowly advancing again, trying to encircle the important logistics hub of Kupiansk, Ukraine’s major gain in the 2022 counter-offensive.
The Russian offensive has killed tens of thousands and devastated large swathes of eastern Ukraine, forcing millions to flee their homes.
On Friday (October 17), “two adults and a 10-year-old child were killed during intense shelling of a residential area” by Kyiv in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Kherson region, the Moscow-installed governor said.
Kyiv meanwhile said that “one person was killed and 14 were wounded in Russian shelling” in the Ukrainian-held part of the region.
Russia pounded Ukraine with 70 drones overnight, hours after President Vladimir Putin spoke to U.S. counterpart Donald Trump by phone during which they agreed to hold a new summit.
The Moscow army said it had intercepted 61 Ukrainian drones overnight, mostly in Russia’s western regions and the occupied Crimea peninsula.
Published – October 17, 2025 10:20 pm IST
