The Ukrainian military said on February 26 that it had repelled more than 70 attacks by Russian forces a day earlier, while a senior military intelligence officer said Ukraine is girded for a Russian offensive but is also "trying to drive a wedge" between occupied Crimea and Russia.
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The Ukrainian General Staff said Russia was "concentrating its main efforts" on offensives in the Kupyansk area near Kharkiv, in the northeast, and in Bakhmut, Avdiyivka, Lyman, and Shakhtar farther south in Donetsk.
It said Russia had conducted 14 missile strikes and 19 air strikes.
Kyiv also said a Russian-installed city prosecutor in the Donetsk region city of Horlivka had "resigned" and was "preparing to evacuate" to Russia "due to fears of the de-occupation" of territory in the area.
In the Luhansk area, regional Governor Serhiy Hayday said Russians were attempting to "storm" Ukrainian positions in the Kreminna and Bilohorivka areas after a recently failed armored offensive there.
He also said the situation is "stable" in the Svatove area.
The General Staff also cited what it said were failed offensives around the village of Yahidne, near Bakhmut, which Russia's Wagner mercenary group claimed to have captured earlier this week.
The Bakhmut area has been the theater for some of the worst recent fighting.
Russian forces were maintaining their defenses in the directions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhya in the south, the Ukrainian General Staff said.
RFE/RL cannot independently corroborate reports on developments in areas of intense fighting.
SEE ALSO: 'The Bakhmut Meat Grinder': Russian Troops Are Pummeling This Donbas City. It's Unclear Why.Meanwhile, the deputy chief of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate, Vadym Skibitskiy, told a German publication that "I believe we will be ready for a counteroffensive this spring."
But he also said preparations hinge on the supply of Western weapons.
"We are trying to drive a wedge into the Russian front in the south -- between Crimea and the Russian mainland," Skibitskiy said, according to the dpa news agency.
The Ukrainian General Staff said that Russia was strengthening its defenses and building fortifications in occupied Crimea.
Skibitskiy added that "it's possible" that Ukrainian attacks could target military facilities or equipment "on Russian territory, for example around the city of Belgorod, from where attacks on Ukraine are launched."
Skibitskiy repeated Kyiv's insistence that its goal is the return of all Ukrainian territory -- including annexed Crimea.
"We'll only stop once we have our country back according to the [internationally recognized] borders of 1991," Skibitskiy was quoted as saying. "This is our message to Russia and to the international community."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy tweeted on February 25 following EU approval of a tenth round of Russia sanctions a day earlier that Kyiv expected "decisive steps against [Russia's state-owned nuclear energy firm] Rosatom & Russian nuclear industry, more pressure on military & banking."