Aviation, artillery: Russians change tactics near Bakhmut

That’s according to a spokesman for Ukraine’s National Guard, Ruslan Muzychuk, who spoke at the national telethon.

"It can be noted that in recent days, the initiative there has been precisely with (Ukraine’s - ed.) defense forces. It is also notable that the Wagnerians have been replaced with regular troops, which was reflected in the nature of the use of forces in the area: earlier it was about a massive amount of manpower, but now we’ve been seeing recently that the number of combat clashes reduced to a minimum, while but the number of artillery strikes has increased significantly, as has their use of the aviation component," he said.

Muzychuk also emphasized that the Russians have essentially not changed their goals, still focusing their main efforts on the Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Marinka axes.

As reported earlier, overnight Thursday, between 00:20 and 04:30, Russian forces launched four Kh-101/Kh-555 air-based cruise missiles, as well as 20 Iranian-made Shahed-136/131 one-way attack drones.

All drones and one cruise missile were downed, while three missiles hit industrial targets in Dnipropetrovsk region.