The Ukrainian army reported intense fighting in the Pokrovskoye and Liman directions yesterday, Ukrinform reported, quoted by BTA.
According to data from 10 p.m. (Bulgarian time) last night on Tuesday, there were a total of 130 clashes, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) wrote on "Facebook".
According to the report, the most fierce were the fighting in the Pokrovskoye and Liman directions, where there were 30 and 27 Russian attacks, respectively.
These data have not been independently verified. There has been no reaction from the Russian side so far.
The city of Pokrovsk in the central-western part of eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region is the main target of the Russian army now.
In the fall of 2022, the Armed Forces of Ukraine regained control of Liman, an important city in the northern part of Donetsk region that Russia had captured at the beginning of the war.
Yesterday, the Ukrainian army confirmed for the first time that Russian troops had entered the Dnipropetrovsk region.
The Institute for the Study of War, meanwhile, reported on its website that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are continuing to put pressure on Russian soldiers who have penetrated east and northeast of the city of Dobropilya, about thirty kilometers north of Pokrovsk, on the eve of the meeting in Alaska between the presidents of the United States and Russia, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
On Sunday, the Ukrainian army announced that it had surrounded the Russian soldiers in the Dobropilya area, the main threat where it has been eliminated.
The Russian military command has reportedly abandoned its attempts to exploit the breakthrough to Dobropilya after the operation did not appear to have led to the establishment of permanent positions, the American think tank noted.
US President Donald Trump has expressed his readiness to impose sanctions on Russia if it does not agree to a ceasefire in the war against Ukraine, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
"What I am considering is very, very seriously if I have to (impose sanctions), but I want to see how (the war) ends", Trump told a reporter who asked him if there would be consequences for his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
"We have economic sanctions. I'm talking about economic, because we're not going to get into a world war," the US president stressed.
Trump has postponed imposing sanctions on Russia, which he has been threatening for a long time, in an attempt to end the three-and-a-half-year-long war, with his mediation efforts so far failing, Reuters notes.
The US president is trying to organize a meeting between his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts, Volodymyr Zelensky. However, the Kremlin is hinting that at this stage Putin does not intend to talk to Zelensky, who has already given his agreement in principle, Reuters points out.
"This will not be a world war, but an economic war," Trump said at a cabinet meeting at the White House yesterday. "An economic war would be bad and it would be bad for Russia, and I don't want that," he continued, adding: "Zelensky is not entirely innocent either."
Trump has long suggested using economic tools as leverage against warring parties, Reuters recalls. He will introduce additional duties of 25% on Indian exports to the US from today, because Delhi is one of the largest buyers of Russian oil.
Yesterday, Trump hinted that he is ready to impose high tariffs on Russia and Ukraine to force them to make peace, Reuters notes.
The Ukrainian government has modernized the procedure for crossing the state border, with men between the ages of 18 and 22 now having the right to cross it freely, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko announced, as quoted by Ukrinform and BTA.
„Today, the government has modernized the procedure for crossing the state border. "Men aged 18 to 22 will be able to cross the border without hindrance under martial law," she wrote on Telegram.
This applies to all citizens in the specified age range, as well as to citizens who, for one reason or another, are abroad.
"We want Ukrainians to maintain ties with Ukraine as much as possible," Sviridenko stressed.
Earlier, President Volodymyr Zelensky ordered the government and the military command to study the possibility of simplifying the process of crossing the state border for young Ukrainians, proposing to raise the age limit from 18 to 22, Ukrinform recalls.