Moscow had reinforced its troops around the embattled eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk and attempted to cut off the country’s access to the industrial hub, Kyiv said yesterday.
Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai said Russian forces were blowing up bridges across the Siverskyi Donets River to prevent Ukraine bringing in military reinforcements and delivering aid to civilians in Sievierodonetsk.
“The Russian army, as we understand, is throwing all its efforts, all its reserves in that [Sievierodonetsk] direction,” Gaidai said in a live TV broadcast. “Russians are blowing up bridges, so we could not bring in reinforcements to our boys in Sievierodonetsk.”
Photo: REUTERS
Since being driven back from the capital, Kyiv, Russia has launched a massive assault in the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, which make up the eastern Donbas region.
For both sides, the fighting in the east has in the past few weeks been one of the deadliest phases of the war, with Ukraine saying it is losing 60 to 100 soldiers every day.
Ukraine’s military yesterday said that Russia had used artillery to conduct “assault operations” in Sievierodonetsk, but Russian forces retreated and Ukrainian troops are holding positions inside the city, about 145km from the Russian border.
Russian soldiers also attempted to advance toward Lysychansk, across the Siverskyi Donets River from Sievierodonetsk, but were stopped, the Ukrainian military said.
Reuters reached Sievierodonetsk on Thursday and verified that Ukrainians still held part of the city.
In Donetsk province, Russian troops were just 15km outside the city of Sloviansk, Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Friday.
The British Ministry of Defence yesterday said that Russian air activity remains high over eastern Ukraine, with aircraft carrying out strikes using guided and unguided munitions.
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