Vladimir Putin put on a military uniform on Friday to thank troops for taking Kostyantynivka. By Saturday, Ukraine said the city was still its own.
Andriy Kovalyov, a Ukrainian army spokesman, told AFP: “The situation remains difficult.” But the city, he said, “is under the control of the Ukrainian Defence Forces.” He added that “Ukrainian defenders continue to hold their positions along the designated defensive lines.” Kovalyov conceded that small groups of Russian troops have been slipping into the town and said fighting was continuing. He gave no numbers or locations.
Moscow’s defence ministry said the opposite: “Russian troops are in all parts of the town — from the southern to northern outskirts.”
Zelensky’s challenge
President Volodymyr Zelensky called the claim “just another Russian lie.” In a post on social media he wrote: “If Kostyantynivka were under Russian control, then perhaps Putin would have no problem meeting me there to find a diplomatic way to finally end this war.” Putin has repeatedly refused talks with Zelensky, saying Moscow intends to take the rest of eastern Ukraine by force. The war is now more than four years old.
On Saturday Russia’s defence ministry also proposed that Kyiv halt shelling in Kostyantynivka on Monday between 0900 and 1500 GMT. The stated purpose was a “humanitarian” operation to hand over “the bodies of killed Ukrainian soldiers.”
Why the town matters
Before the war Kostyantynivka had 78,000 residents. Moscow has been trying to take it for months. It sits on one of the last routes toward Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the major Ukrainian-held cities that Russia ultimately wants in the Donbas. Russian forces have been sending small groups of soldiers to infiltrate and hold positions, the approach used to capture Pokrovsk in late 2025.
Drones over St Petersburg
The competing claims came alongside Russian reports that Ukrainian drones struck St Petersburg, Putin’s hometown. Governor Alexander Beglov said drones hit “the area of an oil terminal in the Kirovsk district.” Air defences shot down 72, he said, one of which crashed in Peterhof, the 18th-century palace estate, with no casualties or damage. The governor of the Leningrad region, Alexander Drozdenko, said the port of Vysotsk, near the Finnish border, had been hit. Zelensky also claimed Ukraine struck the Kronstadt naval base.
Moscow vowed to respond. It said it had downed almost 500 Ukrainian drones and 10 Flamingo missiles overnight. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin put the number shot down on approach to the capital at 62. One person was killed in the Bryansk region and another in Crimea, and Belgorod authorities reported damage to infrastructure that disrupted electricity and water. The strikes follow a Russian attack on Kyiv this week that killed 30 people.
In Kaliningrad, an AFP reporter saw delays at the airport. Several regions have had fuel shortages, with hours-long queues for petrol after depots were hit.
Zelensky and Putin each spoke with Donald Trump ahead of next week’s NATO summit in Ankara. Zelensky wrote on X that there was a “real prospect to put an end to this war, and America’s resolve is decisive.”
