Russia has captured two villages in Ukraine’s southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukrainian open-source researchers confirmed on Tuesday, as Kremlin troops press an offensive amid a stalling diplomatic effort to end the war.

For the first time, Russian forces seized villages in the Dnipropetrovsk region, a minor but symbolic gain that gives the Kremlin another bargaining chip.

Russian troops have pushed into the Dnipropetrovsk region of central Ukraine, Ukrainian military analysts said on Tuesday. Experts from the Deepstate situation map service marked the towns of Zaporizke and Novoheorhiyivka in the region as Russian-occupied.