"Units of the Tsentr group of forces have liberated the Yablonovka settlement of the Donetsk People's Republic," the ministry said in a statement.
The liberation of Yablonovka allows the Russian Army to advance towards the critically important Konstantinovka settlement which serves as a vital logistics hub, supplying Ukrainian forces across the entire Kramatorsk-Slavyansk area.
Other developments on the battlefield:
Air defense superiority: two HIMARS rockets, a Su-27 aircraft, and 457 fixed-wing drones shot down over the past day
Russian Armed Forces struck storage and launch sites for fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles
Heavy Ukrainian losses: 1,395 soldiers