Ukrainian forces struggled to hold out against Russian attacks in the city of Bakhmut, as Russian forces pressed an ongoing offensive in multiple locations in eastern Ukraine.
Further west, Russian rockets or missiles killed several civilians in the southern city of Zaporizhzhya, regional officials said on March 2.
With Moscow's invasion of Ukraine now in its second year, Russian forces have launched a new offensive in Ukraine's Donbas region, seeking to push back Ukrainian forces in several locations.
The fiercest fighting in recent weeks has been reported near Vuhledar, southwest of Donetsk city, and Kreminna, to the north.
Your browser doesn’t support HTML5
Ukrainian Troops Repel Constant Russian Attacks Near Vuhledar
Ukrainian forces have steadily lost ground in and around Bakhmut; last month the settlement of Soledar fell to Russian forces led in part by soldiers from the private mercenary company Wagner.
In recent days, Ukrainian officials have suggested that their troops might have to pull out of Bakhmut entirely. Western experts have questioned the Russian push for the city, saying it has less strategic and symbolic value for Moscow. Ukraine reportedly has far stronger defensive positions to the west and northwest of Bakhmut.
Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine
RFE/RL's Ukraine Live Briefing gives you the latest developments on Russia's invasion, Western military aid, the plight of civilians, and territorial control maps. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.
The Ukrainian military’s General Staff reported more than 170 attacks in the east and northeast overnight on March 2; the bulk were directed against Bakhmut, but also targeting Lyman, Avdiyivka, and Shakhtarsk,
"The enemy continues to advance in the direction of Bakhmut, attempting to storm Bakhmut," the military said.
Russia has been throwing waves of infantry at Bakhmut in its attempt to surround it and cut the Ukrainian supply lines. There were still several thousand civilians in the ruined city, which had a pre-war population of 70,000.
"We continue to see intense fighting near Bakhmut," Brigadier General Pat Ryder, a U.S. Defense Department spokesman, said on March 2. "Wagner and regular forces are pressing their attack on Bakhmut, but Ukrainian forces continue to hold their lines."
In Zaporizhzhya, the number of civilians killed by overnight Russian shelling of a residential building climbed to four, the regional prosecutor's office reported on March 2. Five other people were missing, including a child. It put the number of those wounded at eight.
The city of Kherson, on the west bank of the Dnieper River, which Russian forces withdrew from in November, also came under artillery fire, the military said.
Russian attacks on civilian and infrastructure objectives were also reported in the northeastern Kharkiv region and Poltava in central Ukraine, wounding a number of people and damaging property and infrastructure.
Meanwhile, Russian officials alleged that a group of Ukrainian saboteurs crossed into western Russia and fired on civilians in villages, a claim that Kyiv denied, while suggesting Moscow might be seeking a “false-flag” pretext to stage new attacks on Ukraine.
Details about the March 2 incident, near the southwestern city of Bryansk, were not entirely clear.
Russian media quoted unnamed Federal Security Service officials as saying a group, which the Kremlin later called "Ukrainian terrorists," had infiltrated the Bryansk region and attacked several villages, taking hostages in the process.
In Kyiv, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the Russian statements a "classic deliberate provocation."
"Russia wants to scare its people to justify the attack on another country and the growing poverty after the year of war. The partisan movement in Russia is getting stronger and more aggressive," Mykhaylo Podolyak wrote in a post to Twitter.
In Brussels, European Union diplomats were preparing to allocate 1 billion euros to purchase badly needed artillery ammunition for Kyiv, according to a draft proposal seen by the AFP news agency. EU officials estimate that Ukraine is firing about 7,000 shells per day, compared to up to 50,000 daily fired by Russian forces.
EU defense ministers are expected to discuss the proposals at a meeting in Stockholm on March 7-8.