Russian forces have failed to make any progress on the ground in Donetsk despite sending a barrage of artillery and rocket fire across the front lines, the Ukrainian military said.
The two areas where the fighting appears to be most intense in the eastern region of Ukraine are immediately to the west of Lysychansk — which fell to the Russians at the beginning of the month — and south of Bakhmut, where repeated Russian attempts to break down Ukrainian defenses have yielded just a few kilometers of territory.
In Bakhmut: Ukrainian forces continue to defend a pocket of territory some 30 kilometers (about 20 miles) long.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said Friday the Russians had shelled about a dozen settlements south and east of Bakhmut and launched an airstrike near Striapivka, to the east of the city.
It said the assault “ended for the enemy with losses.”
“Our soldiers drove the disorganized units of the invaders back. The enemy continues to attempt an assault in the direction of the Vuhlehirska [power station] and near Pokrovske, hostilities continue,” the General Staff said.
Further artillery fire took place north of the nearby city of Sloviansk, the General Staff added.
War prediction: In its latest assessment of the battlefield, US-based think thank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), said the intensity of Russian forces’ actions are “not markedly different” from during an officially declared operational pause earlier this month, and the Russian grouping northwest of Sloviansk had “conducted fewer ground attacks along the Kharkiv-Donetsk oblast border than it did during the official operational pause.”
“The lack of successful ground attacks beyond the Sloviansk, Siversk, and Bakhmut areas is consistent with ISW’s assessment that the Russian offensive is likely to culminate without capturing Sloviansk or Bakhmut,” the ISW said.
Northern Ukraine: The General Staff said sporadic artillery fire continued across the border into the northern regions of Chernihiv and Sumy.
Southern Ukraine: Meanwhile, fighting has intensified along part of the border between the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, according to Ukrainian officials.
The Ukrainians said attempts from the Russians to carry out assaults around Davydiv Brid in Kherson “were immediately suppressed” by Ukraine’s soldiers.
Valentyn Reznichenko, head of the Dnipropetrovsk Region Civil-Military Administration, said eight people were injured in Russian rocket attacks in the cities of Nikopol and Kryvih Rih that hit residential areas and schools.
