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| Francisco Seco/Associated Press |
Russian forces were pushing to encircle two cities in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, part of an all-out assault to take control of the Donbas area, which is making progress but at a cost for Moscow.
Fighting was centered around two cities on either side of the Siverskyi Donets River, Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. The two cities are among the easternmost parts of Donbas that Ukrainian forces still control.
Speaking on Ukrainian television Wednesday morning, Serhiy Haidai, governor of Luhansk province, where both cities are located, said the situation for Ukrainian forces in Severodonetsk was dire.
“The city is being destroyed,” Mr. Haidai said. “Yesterday, there were fights on the outskirts of the city. Our guys are holding on, but [Russian President Vladimir] Putin set a goal for his army to capture the Luhansk region, no matter what cost.”
The shelling in Severodonetsk was so heavy, he said in another TV interview, that the city could soon be reduced to rubble.
Russia’s focus on Severodonetsk, a city of 100,000 people, shows just how much its ambitions have been scaled back since the start of the war.
In the early weeks of the invasion, Russian forces pushed to take Kyiv and Kharkiv, Ukraine’s two largest cities. But Kyiv never fell, and now Kharkiv is back under Ukrainian control. Kharkiv reopened its subway system earlier this week, after pushing Russian forces largely out of artillery range. Russia now is concentrating on Donbas, the industrial area on Ukraine’s eastern edge, where fighting has been ongoing since 2014. --->READ MORE HERE
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| REUTERS/Marko Djurica |
Ukraine is battling to remain in control of a key highway to the front-line city of Sievierodonetsk, the country's defence ministry said on Wednesday.
Defence ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said in a briefing that alternative routes existed to supply Ukrainian units in Sievierodonetsk, which is enveloped on three sided by Russian forces.
Motuzyanyk said that Russia's aim was to fully surround Ukrainian units in the city, as well as in nearby Lysychansk. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to +++++relevant+++++ and related stories:
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