• Ukraine claimed the recapture of the western Donetsk town of Urozhaine on Wednesday, marking its first concrete gains in weeks after re-taking a string of villages from Russian troops in the middle of June. Newsweek (a) (LR: 1 CP: 5)
• Hanna Maliar, Ukraine's deputy minister for defense, said: "Urozhaine has been liberated. Our defenders are consolidating their positions." UKRINFORM
• Russia, meanwhile, did not acknowledge any loss of territory in the village. Oleg Chekhov, a military spokesman for Russia's Battlegroup East, instead claimed that its forces inflicted damage to Ukrainian troops and vehicles in the area. TASS
• However, Rybar, a prominent Russian military blogger, said on Tuesday that Urozhaine had become a "gray zone" — a term typically used by pro-Russia voices to minimize the scale of losses — after stating that Russian forces withdrew from the village. Newsweek (a) (LR: 1 CP: 5)
• Earlier in the day, Alexander Khodakovsky, commander of the Russian-aligned "Vostok" battalion in Donetsk, also acknowledged that Russia was taking losses in the area. He said: "No additional forces from the reserve were involved in this sector, no new artillery battalions were deployed." He added: "Of course, we suffered losses. We did not wait for the promised reinforcements at Urozhaine, which were supposed to arrive any day." Newsweek (b) (LR: 1 CP: 5)
• Meanwhile, in an assessment written before Ukraine claimed the recapture of the territory, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US military think tank that tracks battlefield progress in the war, said that Russian forces had likely "largely withdrawn from the core of the settlement to positions on its outskirts. However, Ukrainian forces have likely not yet established full control of central or southern Urozhaine, where limited skirmishes for control are likely ongoing." Middle East Monitor

Pro-establishment narrative:

• While the capture of Urozhaine does not represent an important strategic gain, it shows that Ukrainian forces are continuing to drive forward. Each village is a step in the right direction and brings Ukraine closer to breaking through Russia's defenses.
  Newsweek (LR: 1 CP: 5)

Pro-Russia narrative:

• Russian forces continue to engage in battles for the village Urozhaine. Over the past day, Russian forces destroyed a number of Ukrainian vehicles while landing strikes at groupings of Ukrainian personnel.
  TASS

Nerd narrative:

• There's a 3% chance that Ukraine will have de facto control of at least 90% of the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts by January 1, 2024, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
  Metaculus (LR: 3 CP: 3)