Ukraine says its only hope of turning the tide in the small industrial town is more artillery.
Kyiv:
Officials said the Ukrainian military is fighting fiercely in the streets and shelling Severodnetsk day and night.
Severodnetsk and its twin city Lisichansk, on the opposite bank of the Siversky Donets River, are the last Ukrainian-controlled parts of Luhansk province, which Russia is determined to seize as one of its major war objectives.
Ukraine’s Security Council Secretary Oleksey Danilov said on Thursday that the situation in Severodnetsk was “extremely complicated” and that the Russian military was applying its full force to the region.
“They don’t spare their men, they’re sending men like cannon fodder … they’re shelling our army day and night,” Danilov told Reuters in an interview.
Ukraine says its only hope of turning the tide in the small industrial town is more artillery to repel Russia’s heavy shelling.
Petro Kusik, commander of Ukraine’s Svoboda National Guard battalion, said in a rare update from Severodnetsk that Ukrainians were attracting Russians to street fighting to neutralize their artillery advantage.
“Yesterday was successful for us – we launched a counter-attack and in some areas we managed to push them back a block or two. In others they pushed us back, but only by a building or two,” he said in a television interview. Told.
But he said his army was suffering from a “catastrophic” lack of counter-battery artillery to counter-attack Russia’s guns, and that obtaining such weapons would change the battlefield.
Reuters could not confirm the battlefield report.
In the south, where Russia is trying to impose its rule on the occupied territory spread across the Kherson and Zaporizhzhya provinces, Ukraine’s defense ministry said it had captured new ground in the Kherson province in a retaliatory strike.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an evening address that there have been “some positive developments in the Zaporizhzhya region, where we are succeeding in disrupting the plans of the occupiers” in Ukraine. He did not give details.
Reuters could not independently confirm the situation on the ground in Zaporizhzhia or Kherson. Russian-established proxies in both provinces say they are planning a referendum on whether to join Russia.
Thousands have been killed and millions have fled since Russia launched its “special military operation” on February 24 to disarm and “deny” its neighbor. Ukraine and its allies call the invasion an unprovoked war of 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 portrayed as his historical quests to win back Russian lands.
“Peter the Great waged the Great Northern War for 21 years. It seems that he was at war with Sweden, he took something from them. He took nothing from them, he returned (what was to Russia),” Putin said Told.
‘we are staying’
Severodnetsk Mayor Oleksandr Styuk said about 10,000 civilians were still trapped in the city – about a tenth of the pre-war population.
To the west of Severodonetsk, Russia is pushing from the north and south, trying to trap Ukrainian forces in the Donbass region, which includes Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk provinces.
Ukraine’s military said Russia opened fire on more than 20 cities in Donetsk and Luhansk on Thursday, destroying or damaging 49 homes, several manufacturing plants, agricultural buildings and a railway station. It said two civilians were killed.
Russia says it does not target civilians.
In Soledar, a salt-mining town near Bakhmut near the Front Line, buildings were detonated in the crater.
The remaining residents, mostly elderly, took refuge in a crowded basement. 65-year-old Antonina had gone out to see her garden. “We are living. We live here. We were born here,” she said. “When will this all end?”
cereal
Russian news agencies reported that behind Russia’s proxies in eastern Ukraine, in the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, a court sentenced two Britons and a Moroccan to death who were captured while fighting for Ukraine.
Britain condemned the court’s decision without any validity, calling it a “false decision”.
Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of grain and edible oil, and in recent weeks international attention has focused on the threat of international famine, seen by Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.
“Millions of people could starve to death if the Russian blockade of the Black Sea continues,” Zelensky said in remarks on television.
Russia blames the food crisis on Western sanctions that restrict its own grain exports. It says it is ready to open Ukrainian ports for export if Ukraine removes the mines and meets other conditions. Ukraine calls such proposals hollow promises.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)