Near Pokrovsk  -  Russian forces killed at least three people and wounded two more in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, local officials said on Monday, as President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the frontline.

The Russian army has been rapidly advancing in the industrial territory that Moscow in late 2022 claimed was part of Russia, several months after launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The Donetsk regional governor Vadym Filashkin said on social media that three people had been killed in separate attacks on two war-battered towns. “The Russians shelled Kostyantynivka with artillery, killing two people and wounding two,” he said, adding that another person had been killed by Russian shelling in the town of Siversk, further north. Zelensky meanwhile said he had visited the frontline city of Pokrovsk, where Russian forces are closing in, and presented awards to Kyiv’s troops holding the line. “This is a tense area,” he said, thanking Ukrainian forces for ensuring that the wider Donbas territory was not “completely occupied by Russia”.

He later said that he had toured various defensive lines under construction in the frontline area.

The Ukrainian leader has made regular visits to towns and cities scarred by the war across eastern and southern Ukraine since February 2022, when Russia launched its invasion.