Relentless Russian attacks on Ukrainian military positions guarding the strategic eastern city of Khashiv Yar are preventing troop rotations and the delivery of some supplies, soldiers there said.
Analysts say the Kremlin's forces are seeking to assert their superiority in troops and weapons before Ukraine's armed forces are bolstered by promises of new military aid from Western countries that is already trickling to the front lines.
Russia has hit civilians just as hard, using powerful glide bombs that destroy buildings and leave huge craters, and its months-long campaign to cripple Ukraine's power supply is aimed at undermining national morale and cutting off power to Ukraine's burgeoning defense industry.
Russian soldiers fire a 152mm Msta-B howitzer at an undisclosed location in Ukraine (Russian Defense Ministry Press Office/AP)
The judges said there was evidence they “intentionally caused great suffering and serious injury to the physical, mental or physical health of Ukrainian civilians.”
For Ukrainian soldiers defending the eastern Donetsk region, Russian ground attacks and concentrated aerial bombardment have offered little respite after more than two years of war.
“You could say we work nonstop,” said the platoon leader, who gave only his first name, Oleksandr, in accordance with brigade regulations.
“So no two days are the same. You have to be ready to work all the time, day and night,” he told The Associated Press on Monday.
His platoon, part of Ukraine's 43rd Artillery Brigade, rushes to the position and quickly fires its Soviet-era Pion self-propelled howitzers at the Russian positions before the Russians become targets themselves.
Securing Chasif Yar is crucial: a hugely popular town due to its strategic location and on high ground, but now largely in ruins, it lies west of the neighbouring town of Bakhmut, which was captured by Russia last year after 10 months of fighting.
Soldiers of the Ukrainian 43rd Artillery Brigade fire on Russian positions on the front line in the Donetsk region from a 2S7 self-propelled howitzer. (Yevgeny Maloretka/AP)
Members of Chasif Yar's artillery brigade reported that American supplies of ammunition had begun to arrive.
The United States is expected to announce on Tuesday that it will send Ukraine $150m (£118.4m) of urgently needed additional arms, and Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said the first Czech-led shipment of munitions had been delivered to Ukraine.
The Czechs are seeking to acquire at least 800,000 badly needed artillery shells for Ukraine from countries outside the European Union after the war depleted European, US and Russian stockpiles.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said it would take time for the impact of Western countries' new weapons to be felt on the front line.
Meanwhile, the report noted that Russian forces are “seek[ing]significant tactical and operational successes” ahead of their arrival.
Meanwhile, Kremlin forces continued their barrage of attacks on civilian infrastructure in the northeastern Kharkiv region on Tuesday, carrying out three airstrikes, local officials said, without causing any injuries.
At least three people were killed and 23 injured after a Russian airstrike damaged an apartment building in Kharkiv on Saturday (Ukrainian Emergency Services/AP)
Russian authorities said on Tuesday that they had fired 42 glide bombs into the Kharkiv area in the past 24 hours.
In other developments, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow had responded to the EU's decision to suspend the broadcasting activities of Russia's Voice of Europe, RIA Novosti, Izvesti and Rossiyskaya Gazeta by banning 81 European media outlets.
“The Russian side has repeatedly warned that politically motivated repression against Russian journalists and unfounded bans of Russian media in the EU will not be ignored,” the ministry said in a statement.
