As Russia and Ukraine Seek Gains on Front Line, U.S.

and Allies Warn Moscow

Carlotta Gall, Helene Cooper and Eric Nagourney - 6h ago

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ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — With winter about to set in, Russia and Ukraine are locked in heavy
exchanges of fire across the front line in increasingly urgent attempts to make gains big or small while
they still can.

A gravedigger at work Sunday in a cemetery in the Dnipro region for members of the Ukrainian armed
forces killed since Russia invaded on Feb. 24.

A gravedigger at work Sunday in a cemetery in the Dnipro region for members of the Ukrainian armed
forces killed since Russia invaded on Feb. 24.

© Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times

Ukrainian residents in the town of Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, after shelling on
Sunday.

Ukrainian residents in the town of Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, after shelling on
Sunday.

© Dimitar Dilkoff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Attacks flared in the Sumy region in the north, where rockets and mortars hit at least six settlements on
Saturday, half a year after Russian forces withdrew from the area. And in Russian-occupied areas of the
south, Ukrainian forces struck targets, among them a hotel used by Russian officials and local
collaborators.

Grain in a storage warehouse at the site of a bread factory in Lyman, Ukraine, earlier this month.

Grain in a storage warehouse at the site of a bread factory in Lyman, Ukraine, earlier this month.

© Nicole Tung for The New York Times

“It was loud again in Enerhodar,” the town’s mayor, Dmytro Orlov, who is in exile, said in a post on the
Telegram messaging app alongside a photo of a burning building.

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Both sides in the south have been striking deep behind each other’s lines, but in recent days, the
battlefield positions have not appeared to move much. In other parts of the country, Russian cruise
missiles and drones struck across Ukrainian territory, as Moscow’s campaign to cripple Ukraine’s energy
supplies continued.

After months of no contact, the two top American and Russian military officials held their second
discussion in three days. The phone call on Sunday between Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and
Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu was intended to make clear the red lines that might provoke Russia to
launch a nuclear attack in Ukraine.