Russia's defence ministry has said that its forces had advanced in the battered Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk and were fighting house-to-house battles in a bid to eject Ukrainian forces from the city.
Moscow has said taking Pokrovsk, dubbed "the gateway to Donetsk" by Russian media, would give it a platform to drive north towards the two biggest remaining Ukrainian-controlled cities in the Donetsk region - Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
Russia wants to take the whole of the Donbas region, which comprises Donetsk and neighbouring Luhansk provinces. Ukraine still controls about 10% of Donbas - an area of about 5,000 sq/km (1,930 square miles).
Russia has been threatening Pokrovsk for more than a year, using a pincer movement to attempt to encircle it and threaten supply lines, rather than the deadly frontal assaults it employed to capture the city of Bakhmut in 2023.
Kyiv has acknowledged that the situation in Pokrovsk has become difficult in recent days but said its troops are still fighting there and denied they are surrounded.
"Assault groups of the 2nd Army continued to destroy the encircled formations of the Ukrainian armed forces in the eastern part of the central district and in the western industrial zone," Russia's defence ministry said.
Russia said it had captured 64 buildings in the city, once home to 60,000 people, over the past 24 hours and repelled Ukrainian attacks from Hryshyne to the west.
Russian forces are just a few kilometres away from closing their pincer movement around Pokrovsk and neighbouring Myrnohrad and are also closing in on Ukrainian forces in Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region.
Yuri Podolyaka, one of Russia's top war bloggers, said Russia had tactical control of Pokrovsk but that in Myrnohrad Ukrainian forces had blocked themselves behind heavy defences. Ukrainian forces were also seeking to attack from the north-west.
Ukraine claims refinery hit in Russian city
Meanwhile, a massive drone attack on Russia's southern city of Volgograd killed one person and caused a fire in an industrial area, a local official said, as Ukraine claimed to have struck a nearby refinery.
The attack hit a 24-storey apartment block, damaging balconies and shattering windows of nearby houses, Volgograd governor Andrey Bocharov said on Telegram.
"A 48-year-old civilian man was killed by shrapnel from the attack," he said.
"Falling debris caused a fire in an industrial area in the Krasnoarmeysky district," he said, adding that the blaze had since been extinguished.
Volgograd, more than 400kms (250 miles) from the fighting in eastern Ukraine, is an industrial hub home to gas and petroleum refining plants.
Ukraine has stepped up its drone attacks deep behind the front lines, targeting Russia's energy sector, but fatal strikes so far from the border are still relatively rare.
Unverified images circulating on social media showed a large fire at an oil refinery in the region and an apartment block with charred black marks on the outside and smashed glass strewn across a parking lot.
Ukraine said it had successfully hit the oil facility.
"Explosions and a fire were recorded in the target area," the Ukrainian General Staff said on Telegram.
Kyiv's security chief said recently that Ukraine had carried out nearly 160 successful strikes on Russian oil facilities so far this year.
Russia's defence ministry said it had downed 75 Ukrainian drones, the majority over the Volgograd region.
Moscow, whose forces launched a full-scale offensive on Ukraine in 2022, has also escalated aerial attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities and its rail network, triggering warnings the country could face a winter of power blackouts and disruption to heating supplies.
Russia fired 135 drones at Ukraine overnight, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said today.
Eight people were wounded in the Dnipropetrovsk region when a drone hit a residential building, he said.
"The targets are our critical infrastructure - everything that supports ordinary civilian life," Mr Zelensky said, urging Western allies to slap more sanctions on Russia.
Angelina Jolie visits Ukraine's frontline city Kherson
Elsehwhere, Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie visited one of Ukraine's most dangerous frontline cities and a neighbouring region, meeting medical staff, volunteers and civilians living under constant attacks from Russian troops.
"At a time when governments around the world are turning their backs on the protection of civilians, their strength, and their support for each other is humbling," Ms Jolie said in a statement released today by the Legacy of War Foundation, which supported her visit to Kherson and nearby Mykolaiv.
"The people of Mykolaiv and Kherson live with danger everyday, but they refuse to give in," Ms Jolie said.
