Russian forces turn sights on Lysychansk in battle for eastern Ukraine

KYIV/POKROVSK, Ukraine, (Reuters) - Russian forces were fighting to achieve one of their strategic objectives in Ukraine as Moscow-backed separatists said they were pushing into Lysychansk, the last major city still held by Ukrainian troops in eastern Luhansk province.

Lysychansk’s twin city of Sievierodonetsk fell on Saturday in a victory for Moscow’s campaign to seize the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk on behalf of pro-Russian separatists.

Tass news agency yesterday quoted a separatist official as saying Moscow’s forces had entered Lysychansk from five directions and were isolating Ukrainian defenders. Reuters could not confirm the report.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said Russian forces were using artillery to try to cut off Lysychansk from the south but made no mention of separatists entering the city.

Elena, an elderly woman from Lysychansk, was among dozens of evacuees who arrived in the Ukrainian-held town of Pokrovsk by bus from frontline areas.

“Lysychansk, it was a horror, the last week. Yesterday we could not take it any more,” she said. “I already told my husband if I die, please bury me behind the house.”

The RIA agency quoted a separatist official as saying separatist forces had evacuated more than 250 people, including children, on Sunday from Sievierodonetsk’s Azot chemical plant.

The industrial area was the last part of Sievierodonetsk held by Ukrainian forces before they withdrew on Saturday after weeks of heavy fighting which left the town in ruins.

Russian missiles struck an apartment block and close to a kindergarten in Kyiv on Sunday as world leaders gathered in Germany to discuss further sanctions against Moscow.

Deputy Mayor Mykola Povoroznyk said one person was killed and six wounded in the first Russian attack on the capital in weeks.

In his nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said a wounded sevenyear-old girl was pulled from the rubble of a nine-storey apartment block. The girl’s father was killed in the strike, he said.

“She was not threatened by anything in our country. She was completely safe, until Russia itself decided that everything was equally hostile to them now women, children, kindergartens, houses, hospitals, railways,” Zelenskiy said.

A Ukrainian air force spokesperson said the strike was carried out with four to six longrange missiles fired from bombers more than 1,000 km (621 miles) away in southern Russia.

U.S. President Joe Biden called the strikes acts of “barbarism”, as leaders from the Group of Seven nations gathered for a summit in Germany. Russia denies targeting civilians.

Other G7 leaders mocked Russian President Vladimir Putin as they gathered for a group photograph at the summit.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson suggested the leaders bare their chests and “show them our pecs” in reference to Putin’s shirtless poses over the years, including on horseback.