Fighting has engulfed the area around the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiyivka, the Ukrainian military said on Monday, adding that Moscow’s forces had stepped up airstrikes and were trying to advance with ground forces, but were suffering heavy casualties.

“Continue the fight. Over the past two days, the occupiers have increased the number of airstrikes using guided bombs from Su-35 aircraft,” said the spokesman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Stupun on national television.

“The enemy is also bringing up more and more infantry. But when they tried to launch armored vehicles the day before yesterday, two tanks and 14 other vehicles burned down,” Tupun added.

According to him, over the past day, Ukrainian forces repelled eight attacks on the city, known for its huge coke-chemical plant.

The head of Avdiivka’s military administration, Vitaly Barabas, told the Ukrinform state agency that Russian losses in the current offensive on the city amount to at least 3-4 thousand dead and 7-8 thousand wounded.

This is a strategic position, so they need him

He said “not a single building” was left intact in the city, where just over 1,500 of its pre-war population of 32,000 remained and evacuations were ongoing. The hospital operates under constant bombardment, and only one shop remains open.

“It’s very simple, (it’s about) Avdiivka and its strategic position, it is geographically located at a height, and Donetsk can be seen from here… And that’s why they need it,” said Barabas.

Ukraine’s General Staff said in a report late Monday that its forces repelled 15 Russian attacks near the disputed town of Maryinka, east of Avdiyivka, as well as 11 near Bakhmut in the northeast and six near Kupyansk in the northeast of Ukraine.

The Russians said they had repelled five attempts by Ukrainians to advance on villages near Bakhmut, a town captured by Russian forces in May after months of fighting.

The commander-in-chief of Ukraine, General Valery Zaluzhnyi, said that he discussed the “hottest areas” of the front line with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States, Charles Brown.

This month, Zaluzhny said the war was entering an attrition phase, prompting President Volodymyr Zelenskyi to dismiss the idea that the war was reaching a stalemate.