Operations to defend the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut will go on, and are backed by senior generals, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
Western analysts suggested at the weekend that Ukraine was probably withdrawing some of its troops, as Russian forces close in on the city.
Moscow has been trying to take Bakhmut for months, as both sides suffer heavy losses in a grinding war of attrition.
A local official says there has been street fighting in recent days.
But Deputy Mayor Oleksandr Marchenko said at the weekend that Russia had not yet gained control of the city.
Meanwhile Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner private army involved in the Russian campaign, has lookalined amid apparent friction between his fighters and regular Russian forces.
He also says his representative had been barred from a Russian military headquarters.
Analysts say Bakhmut has little strategic value but has become a focal point for Russian commanders who have struggled to deliver any positive news to the Kremlin.
Capture of the city would bring Russia slightly closer to its goal of controlling the whole of Donetsk region, one of four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine it annexed last September after referendums widely condemned outside Russia as a sham.