Following the Russian withdrawal from the right (northwestern) bank of the Dnipro River in the southern Kherson region, the focus of fighting has shifted eastward, according to both Russian and Ukrainian sources. 
Fighting is reportedly heaviest in the eastern Donetsk area, which together with Luhansk comprises the Russian-speaking Donbas region.
In late September, Russia formally annexed Donetsk and Luhansk, along with the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Since then, Moscow has viewed all four regions as Russian Federation territory. 
Kyiv and its Western allies, for their part, refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the annexations. Polish soldiers pass on Nov. 17, 2022, by the police checkpoint next to the site where a missile strike killed two men in the eastern Poland village of Przewodow, near the border with war-ravaged Ukraine on Nov. 15, 2022. (Wojtek Radwanski and Damien Simonart/AFP)
On Nov. 17, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said that ongoing fighting in Donetsk now centered on the towns of Pavlivka, Vuhledar, Maryianka, and Bakhmut….