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The commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, said the front lines around the eastern city of Bakhmut were stabilizing after months of grueling combat, as Western officials and analysts say Russia’s offensive there is losing momentum. While there have been fewer clashes in Bakhmut in recent days, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military’s eastern command said it was too soon to conclude Russia’s offensive there had run out of steam.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. would continue to fly surveillance drones in international airspace and denounced the actions of Russian jet fighters that intercepted a U.S. drone and collided with it. In prepared remarks for a meeting of nations providing arms to Ukraine, Mr. Austin said the MQ-9 drone was “conducting routine operations” in international airspace Tuesday, when a pair of Russian jets “engaged in dangerous, reckless, and unprofessional practices.”

Shortages of artillery shells are hampering Russia’s grinding advance in eastern Ukraine, Western officials said on Tuesday, as Moscow pushes to capture the city of Bakhmut after months of heavy fighting and Kyiv gears up for a counteroffensive. Russian ammunition shortages have in recent weeks worsened to the extent that extreme rationing of artillery shells is likely in force on many parts of the front, the U.K.’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday in its daily intelligence briefing. Other European defense officials agreed with the assessment, with one stressing that Russia was working with partners including North Korea to buy ammunition quickly while it scaled up production.

Ukraine urged residents of Kherson to evacuate amid an uptick in Russian attacks in the southern city that was retaken by Kyiv’s troops last fall, while pressure grew on Ukraine to vacate the besieged eastern city of Bakhmut. Russia fired 360 missiles from weapons systems including mortars and multiple-launch rocket systems at the Kherson region on Monday, authorities there said. Paramedics and police officers can no longer help many victims of shelling because they are coming under fire themselves, the Kherson city council said.

Moscow said its forces advanced in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region as Kyiv’s Western allies continued pressuring Berlin to allow deliveries of German-made tanks to Ukraine. Russia’s Defense Ministry said Sunday that Russian troops had advanced in the partially occupied region and taken more advantageous lines and positions. The ministry’s spokesman, Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, didn’t provide further details.

Pressure mounted on Germany to approve the transfer of its Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine, a day after Western allies meeting at the U.S. Ramstein Air Base in Germany failed to reach an agreement about sending armored vehicles. Edgars Rinkēvičs, Latvia’s foreign minister, said on Twitter Saturday morning that he and his counterparts from Lithuania and Estonia “call on Germany to provide Leopard tanks to Ukraine now. This is needed to stop Russian aggression, help Ukraine and restore peace in Europe quickly. Germany as the leading European power has special responsibility in this regard.”

Ukraine’s military said it was inflicting heavy losses on Russian forces in the south of the country in an area that military analysts suggest could be the next target for a Ukrainian offensive. The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said that the losses had forced Russian troops to set up a field hospital at a hotel complex in the city of Berdyansk.

At the start of the war in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin ordered Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to occupy Kyiv’s government quarters and assassinate the Ukrainian president, Ukrainian intelligence and security officials allege. When Mr. Putin needed more soldiers on fast-crumbling front lines, the warlord rounded up thousands of men, sometimes forcibly, and sent them in, according to Chechen residents.

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