President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that Ukraine’s military faced difficulties on front lines in the east and south of the country, but were dominant in their campaign.

Senior military officials reported Ukrainian gains in the east – long the focal point of the 17-month-old conflict - around the shattered Russian-held city of Bakhmut.

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General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukrainian land forces, said he was meeting officers in the east to speed up Ukraine’s advances – which Zelensky and other officials ackowledge have been slower than they wished.

“In the Bakhmut sector, my work is devoted to current problems of accelerating the pace of the advance, the prospects for greater activity and resolution of issues that interfere with the implementation of tasks,” Syrskyi wrote on Telegram.

Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesman for the eastern group of Ukrainian forces, said Kyiv’s troops were advancing “consistently and relentlessly” on the fringes of Bakhmut, captured by Russian troops in May after months of battles.

“Every day we are talking about hundreds of meters and over the week about kilometers,” Cherevatyi said in comments reported by Ukrainian media.