Russia pounds Donbas front amid slowdown in Bakhmut

Ukraine says assault on city losing steam and Kyiv could go on offensive 'very soon'

NEAR KREMINNA, Ukraine - Russian forces attacked northern and southern stretches of the front line in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region on Friday, even as Kyiv said Moscow's assault was flagging near the city of Bakhmut.

Úkrainian military reports described heavy fighting along a line running from Lyman to Kupiansk, and in the south at Avdiivka, on the outskirts of the Russian-held city of Donetsk.

Both areas have been major Russian targets in a winter campaign to fully capture Ukraine's industrialised Donbas region.

The offensive has so far yielded scant gains despite the deaths of thousands of troops on both sides in the bloodiest fighting of the war.

At a Ukrainian artillery position in lush pine forests behind the northern stretch of the front, troops fired 155mm rounds from a French TRF-1 howitzer towards a highway used as a supply road for Russian-held Kreminna.

"Luckily, we are holding the same position," a soldier using the call sign "Greenwich" told Reuters.

"Because we are facing a very strong enemy with very good arms. And it's a professional army - airborne troops."

The front lines have barely budged since last November, despite intense fighting. Ukraine recaptured swathes of territory in the second half of 2022, but has since kept mostly to the defensive, while Russia has attacked with hundreds of thousands of freshly called-up reservists and convicts recruited from prison.