Despite Russia’s renewed offensive on the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, Moscow’s forces have made no significant gains in the last 24 hours, the UK’s military intelligence said on Saturday.

Russia’s attempts to scale up attacks on the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the Donbas have been met by strong Ukrainian counterattacks, resulting in a stalemate, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said in a statement.

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“Despite their stated conquest of Mariupol, heavy fighting continues to take place frustrating Russian attempts to capture the city thus further slowing down their desired progress in the Donbas,” the statement read.

“Russian air and maritime forces have not established control in either domain owing to the effectiveness of Ukraine’s air and sea defence reducing their ability to make notable progress,” the defence ministry added in the update on the situation in the war-torn eastern European country.

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The lack of Russian gains in the Donbas will come as a major boost to Kyiv, especially after Moscow’s forces made significant gains on Thursday.

In an update on the situation in the Donbas, Olena Symonenko, an adviser to the Deputy Head of the Office of the President, had said that Russian forces had captured as many as 42 settlements in the Donetsk region.

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Meanwhile, Serhii Haidai, the head of the Luhansk regional military administration, told CNN on Thursday that Russian forces had captured 80% of territory under the Luhansk region.

Having failed to capture any of Ukraine’s major cities in nearly two months, Russian President Vladimir Putin is reportedly eyeing a swift victory in the Donbas ahead of May 9, the day Russia celebrates the USSR’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. To expedite a victory, Putin has appointed General Aleksandr Dvornikov, whose actions in support of the Bashar al-Assad regime between 2015 and 2016 earned him the moniker, ‘The Butcher of Syria’.