Positions in Bakhmut have been fortified and only people with a military role were being allowed in, a deputy battalion commander said
Ukrainian defenders, who have already held out there for months, were braced for new ground attacks, Ukrainian military officials said.
In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he considered the long-anticipated Russian offensive to have already started. "The city, the city's suburbs, the entire perimeter, and essentially the entire Bakhmut direction and Kostyantynivka are under crazy, chaotic shelling," said Volodymyr Nazarenko, deputy commander of Ukraine's Svoboda battalion.
The Ukrainian military reported Russian shelling all along the frontline and said 16 settlements had been bombarded near Bakhmut. It said that over the past day, its forces had repelled a number of attacks near Bakhmut as well as assaults in Kharkiv, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions. With Ukraine desperate for more weapons and munitions to turn the tide of the war, defence ministers from several NATO countries allied to Kyiv were due to meet in Brussels tomorrow to discuss possible further military aid.
"US citizens residing or travelling in Russia should depart immediately," the US embassy in Moscow said."Do not travel to Russia," it added.
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