Russian troops advancing in east but Ukraine forces fighting back: Official

The Ukrainian army says that a Russian offensive along a broad front in the country's east has been stalling amid human and material losses inflicted by Kyiv's forces.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Sunday in a Facebook post that Russian troops were trying to advance in the Sloboda, Donetsk and Tauride regions, but were being held back by Ukrainian forces that continue to fight village by village.

Separately, Ukrainian intelligence officials accused Russian forces of destroying medical infrastructure, taking equipment and denying medical care to residents in several occupied cities and towns.

In a Facebook post Sunday, Ukraine's Ministry of Defense claims that ventilators and other equipment provided since 2014 by international donors and the government of Ukraine were removed from a hospital at Starobilsk in Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region.

The same post alleges that tuberculosis patients were denied medical care in the Kharkiv region at Volchansk while several facilities were used to treat wounded Russian troops.

The accuracy of the claims could not be immediately verified.

Ukrainian officials also said on Sunday that internet and cellular communications were cut in a large area in the Russian-occupied Kherson region and part of the Zaporizhzhia region and blamed Russian forces.

The London-based internet monitor Netblocks said the Kherson region lost 75 per cent of internet connectivity beginning Saturday evening.