Along the undulating front line in eastern Ukraine, artillery never goes silent for long. The roads in Ukrainian-held areas are largely empty, except for tanks and armored personnel carriers and huge trucks filled with boxes of ammunition. The few gas stations still operating are crowded with soldiers savoring hot coffee before returning to the fight.
Hospitals near the front lines are busy, but not overflowing. At one major triage hospital, there are long stretches of quiet and then, suddenly, a parade of ambulances arrives, filling the corridors with wounded soldiers in various stages of consciousness.
As Moscow intensifies its campaign to capture the entire Donbas region, fierce fighting is concentrated around the forlorn eastern city of Bakhmut, where Russian forces have been slowly closing in on vital supply lines. Ukraine’s president has described the escalation as a sign that Moscow is in the early stages of a new offensive.
On Tuesday, Russian forces hit Ukrainian positions with short-range artillery 197 times and the two sides clashed some 42 times, Ukraine’s military said, significantly more than a month ago. Ukrainian forces beat back Russian soldiers assaulting their lines time and again, the military said.
“They are just coming forward; they do not take cover, they are coming all-out,” Denys Yaroslavskyi, who commands a unit currently in Bakhmut, said on Ukrainian television this week. Mr. Yaroslavskyi said “super qualified” soldiers from Russia’s military were now assisting fighters from the Wagner private military company, which has been sending waves of men into battle as cannon fodder for months, according to American and Ukrainian officials.
Before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost a year ago, Bakhmut had a population of about 70,000 people. But most of those living in the battered city fled long ago, and on Tuesday night the mayor, Oleksiy Reva, pleaded with the roughly 6,500 who remained to evacuate.
“The city is under constant hostile fire,” he said in a statement. “The enemy does not spare anyone! How much will you ignore the danger?!”
In recent days, Russia has expanded its attacks to hit Ukrainian positions up and down the eastern front, according to the Ukrainian military and Russian military bloggers.
On the northern end of the front, where Russia halted the Ukrainian offensive around the city of Kreminna in the fall, Russian reinforcements now have the Ukrainians on the defensive. Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have posted graphic videos of fierce fighting in the forests close to the city, with the sound of automatic rifle fire and the thuds of mortars shaking the battered limbs of leafless trees.
Elsewhere in Donbas, the Russians on Tuesday tried to push back into the city of Lyman, which Ukraine recaptured in October, in one of several recent moves that suggests Moscow may be laying the groundwork for a fresh offensive.
“It cannot be said that there was a large offensive operation, but the Russians are trying to take the initiative,” said Col. Sergei Cherevaty, the spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern military command, referring to Lyman.
On the southern edge of the Donetsk region in Donbas, Russia continues to assault the Ukrainian stronghold of Vuhledar, about 60 miles south of Bakhmut. The city is devoid of people but sits at the intersection of the eastern front in the Donetsk region and the southern front in the Zaporizhzhia region, a location that could prove advantageous for Russian forces trying to resupply troops moving between the two fronts.
Even as Russia launches assaults along the east, Ukraine continues to target Russian positions deep behind the front line. Ukrainian officials reported explosions on Wednesday around the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol.
After Russian forces besieged and conquered the southern port city in May, they have gradually turned it into a major military garrison, according to Ukrainian officials. It is not in range of the missiles Ukraine currently possesses, but Kyiv has been able to strike deep into Russian-occupied territory in the past using drones and other means.
Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting.
