Ukraine's military command issued the latest update from the frontlines via Facebook on Friday morning.
Ukrainian troops were continuing their assault operations in the direction of the city of Bakhmut, in the eastern Donetsk region, "inflicting losses in manpower and equipment" on the Russian army, and consolidating their new positions, the General Staff in Kyiv said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces were also keeping up their counteroffensive operation towards the port of Melitopol, in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia province, eroding the Russian army's manpower and military hardware, and "exhausting the enemy all along the frontline," Ukraine's military authorities reported.
Overall, Ukrainian and Russian forces engaged in 72 battlefield clashes on Thursday, Ukraine's General Staff said.
Russian attacks
Russia on Thursday carried out 12 missile attacks, 47 air strikes and 38 barrages from multiple-launch rocket systems, targeting Ukrainian troop positions as well as civilian settlements, according to officials in Kyiv.
These attacks caused injuries among Ukrainian civilians, damaging and destroying residential buildings, as well as other civilian infrastructure, Ukraine's General Staff said.
One person was killed as a result of Russian shelling of Kherson City in the south, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported on Thursday evening.
Meanwhile, emergency crews found the bodies of a married couple on Thursday as they cleared rubble from a Russian strike in the eastern Ukrainian town of Selydove the previous day, taking the total death toll to four, the Reuters news agency reported.
The Economist magazine reported that fighting was raging in dozens of cities and towns along the nearly 1,000 km frontline in Ukraine, from Kupiansk in the north to Kherson in the south.
Every day the Russians were lobbing hundreds of shells into Kherson from the opposite bank of the Dnieper river, according to the magazine.
Ukrainian strikes
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces on Thursday conducted two air strikes on concentrations of Russian troops, weapons and military equipment, the General Staff in Kyiv said.
Ukraine also fired missiles into three concentrations of Russian military personnel, weapons and hardware, six Russian artillery systems, two Russian command posts and two Russian ammunition depots, according to Ukraine's military authorities.
As part of its latest counteroffensive against Russia, Ukraine is pushing through the Zaporizhzhia region in the southeast, in a bid to reach the port of Melitopol on the Sea of Azov, as well as aiming to retake the city of Bakhmut in the east, according to news reports.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, launching the largest military campaign in Europe since World War II.
Friday is day 632 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: ISW, Interfax-Ukraine, Reuters, The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, The Economist