Russia launched a fresh assault before dawn on Wednesday on the easternmost Ukrainian-held city in the battlefield Donbas region, threatening to close off the last main escape route for civilians trapped in the path of the advance.
After failing to seize Kyiv or Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv, Russia is trying to take full control of the Donbas, comprised of two eastern provinces Moscow claims on behalf of separatists.
Russia has poured thousands of troops into the region, attacking from three sides in the hope of encircling Ukrainian forces holding out in the city of Sievierodonetsk on the east bank of the Siverskiy Donets River and its twin Lysychansk on the west bank. Their fall would leave the whole of Luhansk region under Russian control, a key Kremlin war aim.
“All the remaining strength of the Russian army is now concentrated on this region,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a late night address.
His office said the Russians had launched an offensive on Sievierodonetsk early on Wednesday and the town was under constant fire from mortars.
Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said six civilians had been killed and at least eight wounded, most near bomb shelters, in Sievierodonetsk. The main road out was still being shelled, he said, but humanitarian aid was still getting in.
Ukraine’s military said fighting for the road was ongoing, and that on Tuesday it had repelled nine Russian attacks in the Donbas. It reported at least 14 civilians killed in strikes by aircraft, rocket launchers, artillery, tanks, mortars and missiles.
In Pokrovsk, a Ukrainian-held Donbas city that has become a major hub for supplies and evacuations, a missile had blasted a crater in a railway track and damaged nearby buildings, including Lydiia Oleksiivna’s house.
She was clearing dust and ash that covered her kitchen. The windows had been blown out and external walls destroyed. “I don’t know if we can save the house,” she said.
In Kramatorsk, nearer the front line, streets were largely deserted, while in Sloviansk further west, many residents took advantage of what Ukraine said was a break in the Russian assault to leave.
“My house was bombed, I have nothing,” said Vera Safronova, seated in a train carriage among the evacuees.
