NEAR KREMINNA, Ukraine - On Friday, Russian forces attacked both the northern and southern portions of the front in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, despite reports from Kyiv that the Russian offensive was waning near the city of Bakhmut.

According to Ukrainian military reports, there was fierce fighting between Lyman and Kupiansk, as well as in the south at Avdiivka, which is on the outskirts of the city of Donetsk that is under Russian control.

In an effort to fully annex Ukraine's industrialized Donbas region, both areas have been major targets for the Russians during the winter campaign. Despite thousands of soldiers dying on both sides in the bloodiest fighting of the war, the offensive has so far produced few victories.

Soldiers fired 155 mm rounds from a French TRF-1 howitzer at a Ukrainian artillery position in dense pine forests behind the northern section of the front towards a road that supplied Russian-held Kreminna.

Thank goodness, a soldier told Reuters, "Luckily, we are holding the same position," "because our adversary is very well armed and strong. "Airborne troops are a professional army."

The crew quickly moved into position, took off their camouflage, aimed, loaded, and fired as soon as orders with coordinates arrived. They fired three rounds, lowered the barrel of their gun, covered it again, and went back to their bunkers to wait for more orders. The distant sounds of small arms and artillery fire could be heard.

The migrants who were dropped off in St. Johnsbury, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, had been apprehended along the border after entering the country illegally, and they were given a notice to appear for future immigration proceedings. Local officials claim they were not given enough time to plan and are currently putting together a system to offer services to migrants. A Haitian family with two boys, ages 17 and 9, a girl, age 15, and a bus to Miami were dropped off at the welcome center on Thursday. A group of neighborhood volunteers spent the day providing them with food, helping them find lodging for the night, and setting up transportation for them to catch the bus on Friday.

The main objective of the Ukrainian military is to stop a Russian advance from Kupiansk in the north to Vuhledar in the south along the Donbas front. Oleksiy Dmytrashkyvskyi of Ukraine's Tavria military command, in charge of the southern regions, expressed his sadness over the circumstances faced by the mostly elderly people who remained. Russia was reinforcing after suffering significant losses, according to Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesman for the east command, protecting the front further north. Instead, Ukrainian forces have dug in, which some Western military experts claim is a risky tactic given the need to preserve forces for a counterattack.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, conditions for 10,000 civilians from Ukraine, many of whom are elderly and disabled, are "very dire" in and around Bakhmut.

The ICRC's Umar Khan stated during a news briefing that "They are ... spending almost the entire days in intense shelling in the [underground] shelters," "All you see is people pushed to the very limits of their existence, survival, and resilience."

In its most recent report on rights violations during the conflict, the UN confirmed that thousands of civilian deaths—which it refers to as the tip of the iceberg—had occurred, along with disappearances, torture, and rape—most frequently of Ukrainians in Russian-occupied areas. Inhumanity is denied by Russia.

At least three women were killed when a Russian missile struck a shelter for displaced people in Kostiantynivka, west of Bakhmut. Russian shelling caused damage to a school, a residential building, and an administrative building in the northern Sumy region. The southern Odesa region's drone hangar was reportedly destroyed by Russian forces, according to reports. On the grounds that Ukraine's ties to the West posed a security threat, Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Both Kiev and the West describe the conflict as an unprovoked attack on an independent nation.

Increased defense spending, Western sanctions, and the exodus of hundreds of thousands of young men from the workforce have all contributed to economic turmoil at home, even as Russia's invasion has caused enormous damage in Ukraine. Real incomes will only increase by 2% by the end of the decade, according to the Social Policy Institute at Moscow's Higher School of Economics, and the middle class, which expanded after Vladimir Putin was elected president in 2000, will significantly contract.