Ukraine's Ministry of Defense says that Russian forces have launched missiles and air strikes against a number of targets across Ukraine, as they try to break down Ukrainian defenses and hit key infrastructure.
Colonel Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, the Defense Ministry spokesperson, said Russia was carrying out "intense fire and assault operations along the entire line of combat confrontation in Donetsk and Luhansk regions."
Seven aircraft had launched guided missiles from above the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, while coastal missile systems in Crimea were also active.
On the ground, Motuzyanyk said the Russians had made some advances, including north of Sloviansk, where they were advancing in the Sviatohirsk area toward the Siverskiy Donets River. He said the Russians were carrying out "engineering reconnaissance of the area, preparing for the possible forcing of a water barrier." But in other districts on this front they had been repulsed, he said.
Sloviansk is a key target of the Russian operation, and Russian forces have been edging closer to the city in recent weeks.
Further east in Severodonetsk, Motuzyanyk said Ukrainian units were holding back "the offensive of the Russian aggressor, who seeks to surround our troops in the area of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, as well as to block the main logistics routes.....Units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are fighting hard against the occupiers in the eastern and central parts of the city. The enemy spares neither people nor equipment. With the support of artillery, the enemy conducts assault operations to achieve its goal of taking control of the city," he said.
The Russians are also continuing efforts to break through Ukrainian lines defending the route between Lysychansk and Bakhmut, but had been repulsed, Motuzyanyk said.
Further south, an attempt to break through towards the border of Donetsk region had been thwarted. Ukrainian forces had "inflicted heavy losses and forced several enemy sabotage groups to retreat" as they tried to reach the settlements of Rivnopol and Novosilka, close to the regional border with Zaporizhzhia.
In the northern region of Kharkiv, Motuzyanyk said that enemy fire continued against settlements to the north and east of the capital city in an effort to prevent Ukrainian forces reaching the border with Russia.
In the south, the Russians appear to be trying to win back ground that had been lost to a Ukrainian offensive over the last week. Motuzyanyk said that Ukrainian troops were holding off a Russian counter-attack near the settlements of Lozove and Bila Krynytsia. In the same region, Russian troops were firing on Ukrainian positions along the entire line of contact between Mykolaiv and Kherson, he said.