Ukraine and Russia engage in fierce fighting on southern front.

Intense fighting near southeast Ukraine settlements that had until recently been under Russian control indicates advances by Kyiv's forces. The Russian army said the most active fighting took place around the settlements of Rivnopil and Urozhaine, which are near a cluster of villages that Ukraine claimed to recapture over the past week. Major Ukrainian military successes in the southern Zaporizhzhia region could potentially enable Ukraine's forces to break through the land bridge that connects Russia with the Crimean peninsula it annexed from Ukraine.