Russian forces on the attack toward four towns in Donetsk Oblast

Russian troops in Donetsk Oblast are trying to advance toward the towns of Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Marinka, the General Staff of the Armed Forces reported on April 15.

Bakhmut and Marinka are seeing the heaviest fighting, with 40 attacks repelled in these two areas over the past 24 hours.

Russian forces executed 19 airstrikes, 15 unguided rocket barrages and four missile attacks against population centers in the area.

Russia has "re-energized" its nine-month-long assault on Bakhmut as the Russian Defense Ministry and the Wagner mercenary group appeared to have improved cooperation, a Western intelligence report said on April 14.

In its daily intelligence bulletin, the U.K. Defense Ministry reported the Ukrainian strongholds in the western part of Bakhmut – a largely destroyed city in Donetsk Oblast that is now the epicenter of the war – have suffered "particularly intense Russian artillery fire over the previous 48 hours."

‘They crawl forward 24/7:’ On the zero line with Ukrainian infantry north of Bakhmut

Climbing to a firing position through trenches dug into black Ukrainian soil, the relative quiet in the air is only reassuring to an extent. At the most forward point, a Soviet-era recoilless rifle stands watch, dug into a shallow depression in the ground. Bohdan, a company comman…

Kyiv IndependentFrancis Farrell