Russian attacks are raising pressure on the strategic eastern logistics hub of Pokrovsk, Ukrainian officials say, as waves of guided bombs and infantry lead to Russian territorial gains.
The push is fuelling a surge in civilians fleeing, with requests for evacuation in the area increasing about tenfold over the past two weeks, according to a volunteer helping people leave.
Russian forces have been steadily inching forward on several fronts in the eastern Donetsk region, staging particularly fierce attacks near Pokrovsk with Ukrainian troops stretched thin 29 months since Russia's full-scale invasion.
Russia's gains of about 57 square km in the space of a week are the third largest recorded since April after they made only modest gains in June, Pasi Paroinen, an analyst with the Black Bird Group, told Reuters.
Russian forces are using warplanes and artillery fire to support waves of infantry assaults in the area near Pokrovsk, Ruslan Muzychuk, a spokesman for Ukraine's National Guard said in televised remarks.
"These assaults are not always supported by armoured vehicles, often it is infantry assaults," he said, flagging the bombing by Russian warplanes as a particular problem.
"It's a significant threat ... because the Pokrovsk and Toretsk fronts are taking a large share of the daily aviation strikes carried out on the positions of Ukrainian defenders."
Russia's Ministry of Defence said its forces had captured five settlements in the Donetsk region in the past week.
Kyiv-based aviation expert Valeriy Romanenko said Russia's use of warplanes to fire guided bombs was crucial for its battlefield tactics, comparing it to a "conveyor belt".
"The Russians are not piercing our defence, they are pushing it back. They are advancing 100, 150, 200 metres every day using this tactic: dropping guided bombs, then a 'meat assault', (and if those are) repelled, dropping guided bombs again, a 'meat assault' again."
He said the supply of US F-16 fighters to Ukraine could disrupt that dynamic if the jets were able to threaten Russian warplanes but that such operations were unlikely for now given the risk it would present for the new pilots operating expensive jets.
Paroinen said the Russian offensives around the settlements of Toretsk and Niu York as well as the one to the east of Pokrovsk around the villages of Ocheretyne and Prohres had created a "double crisis" for Ukraine towards the end of June.
That, he said, followed the Russian offensive into the northeastern Kharkiv region, which was halted by Ukraine, but opened a new front and spread the defenders extremely thin.
Roman Buhayov, a driver from humanitarian organisation East SOS, told Reuters that the number of requests from people to leave the area had increased about tenfold over the past two weeks.
On Friday, he drove a bus relocating residents from Novohrodivka, a town with a pre-war population of 14,000 near Pokrovsk.
It lies about 10km from the front line, which inches closer each day.
Antonina Kalashnikova, 62, and her disabled son Denys, 34, left their pummelled home by taking Buhayov's bus to Pokrovsk where she spoke to Reuters.
Together with their neighbour, they arrived to the town with all of their possessions reduced to a few market bags before continuing their journey to the southern city of Mykolaiv.
"They started bombing heavily and it became extremely frightening. We didn't sleep all night, and we decided to leave," Kalashnikova said.
"They are destroying everything."
