The Russian Ministry of Defence claimed eight settlements on 17 October, among them Dobropillia, a coal-mining town in Donetsk region1. A day earlier Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, had reported its capture to Vladimir Putin. The other seven lie across Donetsk, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
In June the independent Russian outlet Meduza named the Dobropillia sector as an axis that would bypass Kramatorsk, one of Ukraine's main Donetsk strongholds, from the west.
DeepState's map updates to the morning of 17 October show no Russian control of the town2. They do record Russian advances in Bilytske and near Novyi Donbas, Svitle, Dorozhnie and Matiasheve.
Gerasimov has claimed the town before. In July he announced Donetsk captures, Dobropillia among them, and the Institute for the Study of War found no evidence that Russian forces had entered it. DeepState's own summer figures trailed events on the ground by months on both sides, so its record can still move. Until a map or Ukraine's General Staff confirms it, the capture remains a Moscow claim.
