 Ukrainian soldiers trained on an armoured personnel carrier and shot at targets on a shooting range near Bakhmut on April 6. The commander of the 5th Separate Assault Brigade, 41-year-old Ivan, who refused to give his surname for security reasons, said he trained soldiers before they went to the front line. The task here is to prepare them step-by-step, the fine-tuning, he said, adding that every service member completes this training, unit after unit. Russian forces battled on Thursday in the streets of Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine's devastated fortress city, where Ukrainian soldiers said they were ready to launch their long-anticipated counter-offensive once the weather improves. The months-long battle for Bakhmut, one of the last urban centres in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk province yet to fall to Moscow, has proven one of the bloodiest of Russia's invasion, now in its 14th month.