While Kyiv’s fortunes have brightened in other ways in the war, Moscow’s forces are raining bombs and drones on “fortress belt” cities like Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

Elderly people in isolated villages are going without medicine. One woman said she hadn’t seen a doctor in four years.

Moscow’s forces are intensifying their attacks in southern Ukraine after Kyiv made rare gains along the front.

Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, traveled east to visit frontline troops trying to stave off Russian attacks, and invited reporters for The New York Times to go with him.