Zelensky rejects Russian claim about capture of Kostiantynivka city in Donetsk region

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday denied Russian claims of capturing the city of Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk region.

Zelensky accused President Vladimir Putin of choosing "to lie to the world" about the situation on the front line.

"He claims that Russian forces have supposedly captured Kostiantynivka in the Donbas. Of course, that is not true," he wrote on US social media company X after a phone call with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, calling the claims "just another Russian lie."

"If Kostiantynivka were under Russian control, then perhaps Putin would have no problem meeting me there to find a diplomatic way to finally end this war. But the fact is, he won't cross the front line-reality is very different from Putin's words," he stressed.

On Friday evening, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed Russian forces took control of Kostiantynivka, which he said Putin described as the "first, but very important, stage in the capture of the already important Sloviansk-Kramatorsk defensive hub of the Ukrainian Armed Forces."

The front-line industrial city is about 24 kilometers (15 miles) southeast of the city of Kramatorsk, the administrative center of the eastern Ukrainian region since Russia seized Donetsk city in 2014.

Earlier Saturday, Andriy Kovalev, Ukraine's General Staff spokesman, told the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper that Kyiv continues defensive operations in and around the city, stressing that "the situation remains difficult but is under the control of Ukraine's defense forces."

"On July 3, the enemy carried out 11 assault actions on this front, without success," he said, accusing Moscow of spreading "disinformation and fakes" about the situation on the ground.

Commenting on Zelensky's statement about meeting Putin in the embattled city, Peskov renewed the Russian president's proposal to hold a meeting in Moscow in remarks to the Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station.

"He can come to Moscow as soon as he's ready to make important, responsible decisions. And the Kyiv regime knows exactly what those decisions are," Peskov added.