Ukraine Reports Dozens Of Russian Attacks

Russian forces fired on some two dozen towns and villages around the ruined eastern city of Bakhmut, the Ukrainian military said, as Moscow’s assaults intensified ahead of what Kyiv has warned could be the Kremlin’s largest offensive since the first weeks of the war. Moscow is waging a campaign to seize all of the eastern area known as the Donbas. Ukrainian military officials said that the chaotic nature of the Russian effort, which included waves of inexperienced recruits and former convicts belonging to the Wagner paramilitary group, was limiting its effectiveness. Russia is deploying hundreds of thousands of newly mobilized soldiers, in small groups, to probe for vulnerabilities in Ukrainian defensive lines. That has forced Ukraine to stretch its forces to meet the threat. But while the fighting has been brutal, neither side has achieved any significant territorial gains in months. Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said that Moscow was determined to break through Ukrainian defensive lines before the anniversary of Russia’s invasion, on Feb. 24.