According to Ukrainian officials, fighting in eastern Ukraine continues to be concentrated in the Bakhmut area of Donetsk.
Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk regional military administration, said on Ukrainian television that “Donetsk sector is the most difficult, as the Russians are trying to capture Bakhmut – and all settlements from Lysychansk to Bakhmut are important to them.”
Lysychansk is located in the neighboring Luhansk region and was captured by Russian troops in June.
Hayday said the Ukrainian army destroyed a “large number of occupier personnel and their equipment” in the village of Bilohorivka.
“Now they are trying to break through the defensive line, as they plan to make an additional bridgehead to expand the offensive. There are attacks there 24 hours a day, this area is under constant fire. Six people remain in the village; those are the elderly who do not want to leave. It is difficult to remove people who do not want to leave,” said the official.
Amid difficult weather conditions, Hayday said the “liberation of the Luhansk region is very difficult. However, there is something positive. Our troops are not far from Kreminna,” a city north of Lysychansk that has been occupied since the spring.
Meanwhile, Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional military administration, said that after Russian missile strikes on parts of Donetsk on Monday, “emergency power outages continue. Power technicians are feeding the system with backup resources. In general, the situation is stable. After that, emergency shutdowns, generators become switched on.”
He said the situation around Bakhmut is “extremely tense”.
“Enemy claims that Bakhmut has been taken and that they are on the outskirts of the city are not true,” he said. “Most people have been evacuated from Bakhmut. About 12,000 inhabitants now live in Bakhmut out of 81,000 before the invasion. The enemy is trying to destroy the civilian population.”
The Ukrainian army said the center of Bakhmut was hit and an administrative building, a dormitory and a residential building were damaged.
Kyrylenko said the Russians also shelled the town of Vuhledar, as well as Kurakhove and Hostre – a kindergarten, four high-rise buildings and seven private homes were damaged.