Ukraine has acknowledged for the first time that Russia's army has entered the Dnipropetrovsk region, a central administrative area previously spared from intense fighting.

"Yes, they have entered, and fighting is ongoing as of now," Viktor Tregubov, spokesperson for the Dnipro Operational Strategic Group of Forces, told AFP on Tuesday.

Moscow first said its forces had advanced into the region, which it had not made a formal territorial claim over in July.

It has since claimed to have captured some settlements there.

In a separate statement, Ukraine's General Staff rejected Moscow's claims to have fully captured the villages of Zaporizke and Novogeorgiivka.

But war monitor DeepState, which has close ties to Ukraine's military, said on Tuesday that Russia had "occupied" them.

The Russian army "is now consolidating its positions and is accumulating infantry for a further advance," it added in a social media post.

'Gaining ground'

Russian forces are slowly but steadily gaining ground in costly battles for largely devastated areas in eastern and southern Ukraine, normally with few inhabitants or intact buildings left.

Dnipropetrovsk is not one of the five Ukrainian regions, Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea, that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory.

The concession from Ukraine that it has lost ground for the first time in the region comes as momentum towards a possible peace deal has stalled.

After US President Donald Trump met both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, raising hopes for a breakthrough, Moscow has since ruled out any immediate meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders.

Putin is demanding Ukraine withdraw from some territory it still controls as a precondition to halting the war, demands rejected as a non-starter in Kiev.