Hanna Malyar made the assessment on the Telegram social messaging app on Monday night, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The Ukrainian deputy defence minister wrote, as quoted by the Ukrinform news agency: "In the Bakhmut direction, the intensity of heavy artillery usage and airstrikes has increased. The enemy is simply razing the buildings and structures of Bakhmut city to the ground."
Meanwhile, Russia continued "unsuccessful" offensive operations in "the Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Marinka sectors" in the eastern Donetsk region, according to Malyar.
She added that Russian forces had conducted an assault operation in the Kupiansk area in the northeastern Kharkiv province, but it was also "unsuccessful," The Kyiv Independent reported.
Bakhmut and Maryinka remain “at the epicentre of hostilities," Maliar said.
The embattled eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut has been the focal point of intense battles for months, as Russia seeks to capture Ukraine’s Donbas region, according to news outlets.
On Monday, Ukrainian forces conducted both defensive and active assault operations, including repelling 50 enemy attacks and shooting down Russia’s Merlin unmanned aerial vehicle, Ukrinform reported.
Russia blocks ships carrying Ukrainian grain in Black Sea: EU’s Borrell
Meanwhile, Russia has "once again" blocked 50 ships carrying Ukrainian grain in the Black Sea, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, announced on April 17.
Writing on Twitter, Borrell said that the EU would "continue facilitating exports through the EU Solidarity Lanes" across Ukraine-EU land borders, which "have brought 25 billion tons of grain to the world."
Earlier on Monday, Ukraine's Infrastructure Ministry said that Russia had blocked inspections of ships transporting Ukrainian grain in Turkey's waters for the second time, endangering the functioning of the Ukraine Black Sea grain deal, The Kyiv Independent reported.
After launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year, Russia blocked Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea, forcing Ukraine to export its grain overland through neighbouring countries, according to news reports.
The United Nations and Turkey-brokered Ukraine Black Sea grain deal, first signed in July, has helped avert a global food crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and blockade of its Black Sea ports, according to Britain’s The Economist newspaper.
Ukraine has so far exported nearly 25 million tonnes of grain, mainly corn and wheat, under the deal, chiefly to China, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands, according to UN officials cited by Reuters last month.
On March 18, the UN and Turkey said the agreement had been extended, without specifying a time frame, according to news outlets.
Ukraine’s Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said the grain agreement had been extended for 120 days.
Russia notified all participants in the Black Sea grain initiative that the deal had been extended for 60 days, according to Russian media outlet RBC, which cited foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
The Kremlin has said prospects for renewing the grain deal again in May are "not so bright," the Reuters news agency has reported.
Russia has repeatedly threatened to back out of the deal, saying it would renew the agreement only if certain conditions in relation to its own exports were met, according to Reuters.
Tuesday is day 419 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
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Source: PAP, Reuters, Ukrinform, The Kyiv Independent