Russia intensifies Donbas offensive
Battle on eastern front could decide fate of Ukraine, defence minister warns
KYIV/SLOVYANSK — Russian forces were conducting an all-out assault on Tuesday to encircle Ukrainian troops in twin cities straddling a river in eastern Ukraine, a battle that could determine the success or failure of Moscow's main campaign in the east.
Exactly three months after President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian forces into Ukraine, authorities in its second-largest city, Kharkiv, reopened the underground metro, where thousands of civilians had sheltered for months.
But the decisive battles of the war's latest phase are still raging further south, where Moscow is attempting to seize the Donbas region of two eastern provinces, Donetsk and Luhansk, and trap Ukrainian forces in a pocket on the main eastern front.
“Now we are observing the most active phase of the fullscale aggression which Russia launched against our country,” Ukrainian Defence Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk told a televised briefing.
“The situation on the (eastern) front is extremely difficult because the fate of this country is perhaps being decided (there) right now.”
The easternmost part of the Ukrainian-held Donbas pocket, the city of Sievierodonetsk on the east bank of the Siverskiy Donets river and its twin Lysychansk on the west bank, have become the pivotal battlefield there, with Russian forces advancing from three directions to encircle them.
“The enemy has focused its efforts on carrying out an offensive in order to encircle Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk,” said Serhiy Gaidai, governor of Luhansk province, where the two cities are among the last territory still held by Ukraine.
“The intensity of fire on Sievierodonetsk has increased by multiple times, they are simply destroying the city,” he said, adding there were about 15,000 people living there.
Further west in Slovyansk, one of the biggest Donbas cities still in Ukrainian hands, air raid sirens wailed on Tuesday but streets were still busy, with a market full, children riding bikes and a street musician playing violin.
Gaidai said Ukrainian forces had driven the Russians out of the village of Toshkivka just south of Sievierodonetsk.
Russian forces have taken control of the town of Svitlodarsk, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told a local affiliate of Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty.
Svitlodarsk is 80 kilometres southwest of Sievierodonetsk.
Three months into a war that some Western experts predicted Russia would win within days, Moscow still has only limited gains to show for its worst military losses in decades, while much of Ukraine has suffered devastation. Around 6.5 million people have fled abroad, uncounted thousands have been killed and cities have been reduced to rubble.
The war has also had massive international ramifications, including growing food shortages and soaring prices in developing countries that import Ukrainian grain.