Positions in Bakhmut have been fortified and only people with a military role were being allowed in, while any civilians who wanted to leave would have to brave the incoming fire, a deputy battalion commander said on Monday.

“There is not a single square metre in Bakhmut that is safe or that is not in range of enemy fire or drones,” Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, told the Ukrainian national broadcaster late on Monday.

Bakhmut is a prime objective for Russian President Vladimir Putin, and its capture would give Russia a new foothold in the Donetsk region and a rare victory after months of setbacks.

“We see how they are sending more troops, more weapons, more capabilities,” Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels, saying it was the start of a new offensive.

Russia was already deploying “thousands and thousands of more troops, accepting a very high rate of casualty, taking big losses, but putting pressure on the Ukrainians,” he added.

“What Russia lacks in quality, they try to compensate in quantity,” Stoltenberg noted.

The Russian assault on Bakhmut has been spearheaded by mercenaries of the Wagner group, who in the past three days, have made small gains in the northern outskirts of Bakhmut, the British defence ministry said on Tuesday.

The tactical Russian advance to the south of Bakhmut had likely made little progress, the ministry said in a regular bulletin.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian forces were trying to surround Bakhmut.

“Thank you to every one of our soldiers who are preventing the occupiers from encircling Bakhmut … and who are holding our key positions at the front,” Zelensky said in an evening address.

The Donetsk and Luhansk regions make up the Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland, now partially occupied by Russia which wants full control.

Russian forces were aiming to capture the entire Luhansk region and reach its administrative boundaries, said its governor, Serhiy Gaidai.

“They’ve already brought a large quantity of manpower and equipment and we’re already recording an increase in shelling, both by artillery and from the air,” he told media.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the battlefield reports.

The UN human rights office said on Monday it had recorded 7,199 civilian deaths and 11,756 wounded since Russia’s February 24 invasion, mostly from shelling and missile and air strikes. However, it believed the actual figure was far higher.

Russia launched what it calls its “special military operation” to “denazify” Ukraine and protect Russian speakers. Western leaders say it was nothing more than a land grab.

With Ukraine desperate for more weapons, defence ministers from several Nato allies will meet in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss more military aid.

On the eve of the meeting, Ukraine’s top general and the most senior US Army commander in Europe discussed military aid and training in a telephone conversation. Ukraine says it needs fighter jets and long-range missiles.

Stoltenberg said he expected the issue of aircraft to be discussed, but that Ukraine needed support on the ground now.

A Nato source said it would increase the stockpiling of ammunition as Ukraine was burning through shells much faster than Western countries could produce.

Training of Ukrainian forces on the Leopard 2 and other modern battle tanks that are to boost their defences is under way in several European countries, including Poland, Britain and Germany.

Additional reporting by dpa