Sievierodonetsk and its twin city Lysychansk, on the opposite bank of the Siverskyi Donets river, are the last Ukrainian-controlled parts of Luhansk province, which Russia is determined to seize as one of its main war targets.
Ukrainian Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov said Thursday that the Sievierodonetsk situation was “extremely complicated” and that Russian forces were concentrating all their forces in the region.
“They don’t spare their people, they send men like cannon fodder…they bombard our military day and night,” Danilov said in a Reuters interview.
Ukraine says its only hope of turning the tide in its favor in the small industrial city is to have more artillery to offset Russia’s massive firepower.
In a rare update from Sievierodonetsk, the commander of the Ukrainian National Guard Svoboda Battalion, Petro Kusyk, said the Ukrainians were drawing the Russians into street fighting to neutralize their artillery advantage.
“Yesterday was a good day for us – we launched a counter-offensive and in some areas we managed to push them back one or two blocks. one or two buildings,” he said in a television interview.
But he added that his forces suffered from a “catastrophic” lack of counter-battery artillery to retaliate against Russian guns, and that obtaining such weapons would transform the battlefield.
Reuters could not verify reports from the battlefield.
In the south, where Russia is trying to impose its rule over a stretch of occupied territory covering the provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the Ukrainian defense minister said he had conquered new ground during a counterattack in the Kherson province.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy declared in a speech in the evening that the Ukraine had “positive developments in the region of Zaporizhzhia, where we manage to disrupt the plans of the occupiers”. He did not provide details.
Reuters could not independently verify the situation on the ground in Zaporizhzhia or Kherson. Russian-installed proxies in the two provinces say they are planning referendums to join Russia.
Thousands of people have been killed and millions have fled since Russia launched its “special military operation” to disarm and “denazify” its neighbor on February 24. Ukraine and its allies call the invasion a war of unprovoked aggression.
Speaking in Moscow to mark the 350th anniversary of the birth of Russian Tsar Peter the Great, President Vladimir Putin drew a parallel between what he described as their historic quests to reclaim what he called Russian lands.
“Peter the Great waged the Great Northern War for 21 years. You would think he was at war with Sweden, that he was taking something from them. He took nothing from them, he gave back (what belonged Russia),” Putin said.
WE STAY
Sievierodonetsk Mayor Oleksandr Stryuk said around 10,000 civilians were still stuck in the city, about a tenth of its pre-war population.
West of Sievierodonetsk, Russia pushes north and south, trying to trap Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region, including Luhansk and the neighboring province of Donetsk.
Russia bombed more than 20 towns in Donetsk and Luhansk on Thursday, destroying or damaging 49 homes, several manufacturing plants, agricultural buildings and a railway station, the Ukrainian military said. Two civilians were killed, she added.
Russia says it’s not targeting civilians.
In Soledar, a salt-lined town near Bakhmut, close to the frontline, buildings were turned into craters by the blast.
The remaining inhabitants, mostly elderly, sheltered in a crowded cellar. Antonina, 65, had ventured outside to see her garden. “We stay. We live here. We were born here,” she sobbed. “When is this all going to end?”
GRAIN
In the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk, one of Russia’s proxies in eastern Ukraine, a court has sentenced to death two Britons and a Moroccan who were captured fighting for Ukraine. report Russian news agencies.
Britain condemned the court’s decision, calling it a “sham judgment” without any legitimacy.
Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of grain and edible oil, and international attention has focused in recent weeks on the threat of international famine believed to be caused by Russia’s blockade of ports Black Sea Ukrainians.
“Millions of people could starve if the Russian blockade of the Black Sea continues,” Zelenskiy said in televised remarks.
Russia blames the food crisis on Western sanctions that restrict its own grain exports. It says it is ready to keep Ukrainian ports open to exports if Ukraine removes the mines and meets other conditions. Ukraine describes these proposals as empty promises.
(This story is edited to remove typos in the first paragraph).