Pokrovsk, Ukraine –
Russian and Ukrainian troops engaged in close combat in a city in eastern Ukraine on Sunday as Moscow troops, backed by intense shelling, sought strategic support to conquer the region in the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance.
Ukrainian regional authorities say Russian forces are storming Severodonetsk after trying unsuccessfully to encircle the city. Fighting has cut off power and mobile phones, and the humanitarian aid center could not operate due to danger, the mayor said.
Sieverodonetsk, about 143 kilometers (89 miles) south of Russia’s border, has emerged in recent days as the epicenter of Moscow’s bid to take over Ukraine’s entire Donbass industrial region. Russia has also stepped up efforts to capture nearby Lisichansk, where civilians have rushed to escape the persistent shelling.
The two eastern cities cover the strategically important Siversky Donetsk River. They are the last large areas under Ukrainian control in the province of Luhansk, which makes up the Donbass along with neighboring Donetsk.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a rare visit to the front line in the city of Kharkiv as he tried to establish the strength of Ukraine’s position there. Ukrainian fighters pushed Russian forces out of positions near the city, Ukraine’s second-largest, a few weeks ago.
“I am very proud of our defenders. “Every day, risking their lives, they fight for the freedom of Ukraine,” Zelensky wrote in the Telegram news app after visiting troops stationed in Kharkiv.
Russia continued to bomb the northeastern city from afar, and explosions could be heard in the area shortly after Zelensky’s visit. The shelling and airstrikes have destroyed more than 2,000 apartment buildings since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, according to regional governor Oleh Sinegubov.
In the wider Kharkiv region, Russian troops still held about 30 percent of the territory, while Kiev troops had taken another 5 percent, the governor said.
However, Zelenski acknowledged that the battle for the east was “indescribably difficult”. “The Russian army is trying to squeeze at least some result, concentrating its attacks there,” he said in a video message Saturday night.
After failing to seize Ukraine’s capital, Russia is focusing on occupying parts of Donbass that are not yet controlled by pro-Moscow separatists.
Russian forces have made little progress in recent days as bombing destroyed Ukrainian positions and trapped civilians in basements or desperately tried to get out safely. Attacks to destroy military targets across the country have also killed civilians.
Civilians who reached the eastern city of Pokrovsk, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of Lisichansk, said they held out as long as they could before fleeing the Russian offensive.
Yana Skakova choked on tears, describing that she left with her 18-month-old and 4-year-old sons, while her husband was left to take care of their house and animals. The family was among 18 people who had lived in a basement for the past 2.5 months, while police told them on Friday it was time to evacuate.
“None of us wanted to leave our hometown,” she said. “But in the name of these little children, we decided to leave.”
Sergei Haidai, the governor of Luhansk province, said the constant shelling created a “difficult” situation in Lisichansk. “There are dead and wounded,” he wrote in the Telegram, without specifying.
On Saturday, he said, one civilian was killed and four were injured when a Russian shell hit a high-rise apartment building.
But some delivery and evacuation routes in Luhansk are still operational on Sunday, he said. He claims that the Russians withdrew “at a loss” from a village near Severodonetsk, but launched air strikes against another nearby village on the strategic Seversky Donetsk River.
Severodonetsk Mayor Alexander Struck said there was a fight at the city’s bus station on Saturday. Residents of the city, which had a pre-war population of about 100,000, risked being shelled to get water from half a dozen wells and no electricity or cell phone, Struck said.
Struck estimated that 1,500 civilians had died in Russian attacks since the start of the war, as well as a lack of drugs and diseases that could not be cured.
The Washington-based Institute for War Studies, a Washington-based think tank, has questioned the Kremlin’s strategy of amassing huge military efforts to seize Severodonetsk, saying it is costly for Russia and will bring little return.
“When the battle of Severodonetsk is over, no matter which country holds the city, Russia’s offensive at the operational and strategic levels is likely to have culminated, giving Ukraine a chance to resume counter-offensives at the operational level to push Russian forces back,” the institute said. assessment published late Saturday.
Deteriorating conditions have raised fears that Severodonetsk could become the next Mariupol, a port city 281 kilometers (175 miles) south, which spent nearly three months under siege before the last Ukrainian fighters surrendered.
An aide to Ukraine’s Mariupol mayor said on Sunday that after Russian forces gained full control of Mariupol, they had piled up the bodies of dead people in a supermarket.
Assistant Petro Andryushchenko posted a photo in the Telegram news app of what he described as a “corpse dump” in the occupied city. It showed corpses lined up next to closed supermarket counters.
It was not possible to immediately verify his claim or the authenticity of the photo, which Andryushchenko described as recent.
“Here the Russians bring the bodies of the dead, which were washed from their graves in an attempt to restore the water supply and partially exhumed. They just throw them away as garbage,” he wrote.
Regions in Ukraine were hit overnight by renewed Russian air strikes. On the ground in the eastern Donetsk region fighters fought back and forth to control villages and towns.
The Ukrainian army has reported heavy fighting around Donetsk, the provincial capital, and the estuary to the north. The small town serves as a key railway center in the Donetsk region. Moscow said on Saturday it had captured Lyman, but Ukrainian authorities said their fighters continued to fight in parts of the city.
“The enemy is reinforcing its units,” said an operational update of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. “It simply came to our notice then.
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Mazalan reported from Kyiv. Andrea Rosa in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Juras Karmanau from Lviv, Ukraine, and AP journalists from around the world.
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