The Russian Ministry of Defense said soldiers have advanced into the Dnipropetrovsk region in south-central Ukraine.

Russia's Defence Ministry said on Sunday that its forces had reached the western edge of the Donetsk region, one of the four provinces Russia illegally annexed in 2022, and that troops were 'developing the offensive' in the neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk region.

Russia claimed Sunday that its forces are for the first time pushing into the central Ukrainian region of Dnipropetrovsk, an area it has been trying to reach for months, in a move that could create new problems for Kyiv’s much-stretched forces.

Russian officials say that Moscow is still awaiting confirmation from Kyiv on a planned exchange of 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action.

(Reuters) -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed on Sunday to press on with prisoner exchanges with Russia and said any failure by Moscow to uphold humanitarian accords cast doubt over U.S. and other efforts to end the more than three-year-old conflict.

A large-scale prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine -- the only concrete outcome of peace talks -- was thrown into doubt Saturday after Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of delaying and thwarting the swap.