Russian tanks and troops have begun advancing into Sievierodonetsk, the largest city in Donbas still held by Ukraine, witnesses and officials have said.
“Unfortunately we have disappointing news: the enemy is moving into the city,” the Luhansk regional governor, Serhiy Gaidai, told Ukrainian national television on Monday.
Witnesses said Russian tanks were advancing towards the centre of the city one blast at a time, razing everything in their path that remains following intense shelling that Ukrainian authorities have said has led to conditions on the ground reminiscent of Mariupol.
“They [the Russian army] use the same tactics over and over again,” Gaidai said. “They shell for several hours – for three, four, five hours – in a row and then attack. Those who attack die. Then the shelling and attack follow again, and so on until they break through somewhere.”
Witnesses said the city was being bombed “200 times an hour” as Russian forces try to cut off reinforcement lines and surround its remaining defenders.
The city’s mayor, Oleksandr Striuk, confirmed in a telephone interview with the Associated Press that Russian troops had “advanced a few blocks towards the city centre”. He said Ukrainian forces were fighting to push the Russians out in street fighting and that the 12,000-13,000 civilians left in the city were sheltering in basements and bunkers to escape relentless bombardment.
Local authorities estimated that 1,500 civilians had already died in Russian attacks on Sievierodonetsk, including from a lack of medicines. Striuk said the city had “been completely ruined” and that the number of victims was “rising every hour, but we are unable to count the dead and the wounded amid the street fighting”.
The battle for Sievierodonetsk, which lies on the eastern bank of the Siverskyi Donets River, about 145km (90 miles) south of the Russian border, is in the spotlight as Russia grinds out slow but solid gains in the industrial Donbas, which comprises the self-proclaimed republics in Luhansk and Donetsk.
Having failed to take the national capital, Kyiv, in the early phase of the war, Russia is seeking to consolidate its grip on Donbas, large parts of which are already controlled by Moscow-backed separatists. It has concentrated huge firepower on a small area – in contrast to the earlier phase of the conflict, when its forces were often spread thinly – bludgeoning towns and cities with artillery and airstrikes.
“They don’t care how many lives they will have to pay for this,” said Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his latest national address, referring to Russian forces in the region.
Russia has also stepped up its efforts to take the neighbouring city of Lysychansk, where, according to Gaidai, a Russian shell fell on a residential building over the weekend, killing a child.
According to Ukrainian officials, Lysychansk is still under Ukrainian control, while the main road into the two cities has been shelled, but not blocked.
“The liberation of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, recognised by the Russian Federation as independent states, is an unconditional priority,” Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, told French TV on Sunday, adding that other Ukrainian territories should decide their future on their own.
Comments