The Ukrainian military announced on Thursday that Russian troops had suffered casualties as they tried to infiltrate the Sloviansk region in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
Although Russian forces have carried out artillery and missile strikes on the vast frontier in the past 24 hours, there are no signs that they have captured new territory.
“The enemy carried out artillery operations with the support of artillery in the area of Velika Komishuwaka; did not succeed, suffered significant losses in some areas and was forced to return to previously occupied positions,” the Ukrainian military general said in its daily update. .
Fighting has been going on in the Velyka Komyshuvakha area since late April – since the Russians tried to capture the Izium and push it towards the Slovenes – but the front lines have not changed much.
In Luhansk: On the other main front, in some parts of the Luhansk region, Ukrainians still hold, and Russian planes hit several villages, civil servants said.
It said Ukrainian security forces were conducting raids around the industrial city of Chevrodonetsk, and that Russian offensive operations in the Zolote region had failed.
Serhii Hayday, head of the Luhansk military administration, said Severodonetsk had been the worst hit by recent attacks and confirmed that four civilians had been killed on Wednesday.
Elsewhere: Other areas also reported Russian artillery and missile strikes overnight. The city military administration in the town of Kryvih Rih, in the southern Dnipropetrovsk region, said “enemy shelling took place throughout the night.”
It said heavy shelling had hit residential areas of the town of Velyka Kostromka, about 20 miles south of the Kryvih Rih, which had been in the front line for more than a month.