Ukraine has so far thwarted an attempt to advance Russian north of its Donetsk region, but the city of Sloviansk and other civilian areas are being heavily bombed, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday.
Russia has increased its focus on Donetsk, where the southern part is already controlled by it and its representatives, after completing its capture of the neighboring Luhansk region on Sunday with the capture of Lysychansk, which is now in ruins.
Moscow says fully expelling the Ukrainian military from both regions is key to what it calls a “special military operation” to ensure its own security, a four-month offensive that the West calls a war of unprovoked aggression.
Donetsk and Luhansk form Donbass, the industrialized part of eastern Ukraine that has seen Europe’s biggest battle in generations and that Russia wants to seize control on behalf of Moscow-backed separatists in two self-proclaimed people’s republics.
Ukrainian officials said heavy fighting was taking place as Russian forces tried to advance from Luhansk into the Donetsk region and the city of Sloviansk.
“We are holding the enemy on the border of the Luhansk region and the Donetsk region,” Luhansk governor Serhiy Gaidai told Ukrainian television.
He said the regular army Russian and reserve forces were sent there in an apparent effort to cross the Siverskiy Donets River and that two small settlements within Luhansk’s borders were the scene of fierce fighting.
“The Luhansk region is still struggling. Almost the entire territory has been captured, but in two settlements fighting is ongoing,” he declared in a video interview.
Gaidai and other Ukrainian officials said Russian forces were attacking targets in the Donetsk region with artillery.
Vadym Lyakh, the mayor of Sloviansk, said in a video on Wednesday that the city had been bombed in the past two weeks.
“The situation is tense,” he said, speaking a day after local officials said Russian forces attacked a market and residential area in Sloviansk and killed at least two people.
Russia says it does not target civilians.
Lyakh said 17 villagers had been killed and 67 injured since President RussianVladimir Putin ordered his troops to enter Ukraine on February 24.
Source: CNN Brasil
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