MOSCOW, March 14. /TASS/. Ten Ukrainian battalion tactical groups are positioned in the area of Artyomovsk (called Bakhmut by Ukraine), Igor Kimakovsky, adviser to the acting head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), said on Tuesday.

"Ten battalion tactical groups are now positioned in the area [of Artyomovsk] and these are the forces of those army corps that they [the Ukrainian military] trained for an offensive," he said in a live broadcast on Russia’s TV Channel One.

A retired lieutenant-colonel of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) people’s militia told TASS earlier on Tuesday that the Ukrainian military needed 50,000 troops for an offensive in Artyomovsk.

Artyomovsk is located on the Kiev-controlled part of the Donetsk People’s Republic and is a major transportation hub for the Ukrainian army’s supplies in Donbass. Fierce fighting for the city is underway. Wagner private military company founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said on March 11 that Russian troops were 1.2 km away from the administrative center of Artyomovsk.