In its regular evening update, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said that Russian forces are focusing their main effort on an attempt to capture the eastern Donetsk Oblast, conducting offensive operations toward Bakhmut and Lyman.
Bakhmut, a salt-mining city with a pre-war population of around 70,000, is one of Russia's main targets. Seizing it could allow Russian forces to launch attacks on urban areas such as Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in Donetsk Oblast.
According to the Ukrainian military, Moscow's forces attacked Bakhmut, 12 settlements nearby, and four settlements near Lyman.
The Donbas region, made up of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, is the scene of the war's most intense fighting.
Russia invaded and occupied parts of the oblasts for the first time in 2014, including the regional capitals of Donetsk and Luhansk.
In late December, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said that Bakhmut is Ukraine's "eastern fortress," where Russia has concentrated the most military equipment and weapons.
