Russia cuts gas to Finland amid wider war push

BUCHA, UKRAINE — Russian troops continued their offensive into the Donbas region on Saturday, aiming to encircle the easternmost point of Ukrainian control in what one official said would be a repeat of Moscow’s assault on the beleaguered city of Mariupol.

Meanwhile, Moscow cut off natural gas exports to Finland and the Russian defense ministry said it destroyed a consignment of U.S.- and European-supplied weapons meant for Ukrainian fighters in the Donbas.

Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai said Russian troops were throwing “all their forces and efforts” into assaulting Severodonetsk in Luhansk province, aiming to cut off the main supply route to the city. Six people were killed and three others wounded in Russian attacks on Severodonetsk, Hadai said, along with at least two others killed in shelling on neighboring towns.

“The Russians are destroying Severodonetsk, like Mariupol,” Haidai said in a statement on Telegram, adding that Ukrainian forces had defended the city against 11 enemy incursions.

A Russian breakthrough in Luhansk would enable an attack on Donetsk and Kharkiv provinces, he added.

“This is the difficult fate of Luhansk region, not to allow the Russians to move forward,” he said.

The grinding advance in the east comes one day after Russia claimed its biggest victory in its almostthree-month assault: the full capture of the Azovstal steelworks plant, the labyrinthine underground network of tunnels that became Ukraine’s last stand in the Black Sea coastal city of Mariupol, along with the surrender of what the Russian defense ministry said were 2,439 Ukrainian fighters.