KYIV: Ukrainian troops were engaged in fierce street fighting with Russian soldiers in the industrial city of Sievierodonetsk, while other towns were under constant shelling, as the Kremlin pushed for control of the eastern Donbas region.
Sievierodonetsk has become the main target of the Russian offensive in the Donbas, comprising Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, as the invasion grinds on in a war of attrition that has seen cities laid waste by artillery barrages.
“In the city, fierce street fighting continues,” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on Monday.
‘They outnumber us, they are more powerful,” Zelenskiy told reporters at a briefing. But Ukraine’s forces have “every chance” of fighting back, he added’.
Ukraine’s defence ministry said Russia was also throwing troops and equipment into its drive to capture the largest remaining Ukrainian-held city in Luhansk.
Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai said earlier on Monday the situation had worsened after Ukrainian defenders had pushed back the Russians over the weekend as they seemed close to victory.
In its nightly update, the Ukrainian military said two civilians were killed in Russian shelling in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions on Monday and that Russian forces had fired at more than 20 communities.
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