kyiv, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces attacked along a wide front in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday as part of a large-scale ground offensive to seize control of the country’s eastern industrial heartland as authorities Ukrainians called a “new phase of the war”. ”
Ukraine’s General Staff said earlier Tuesday that Russian forces are focusing their efforts on taking full control of the Donbass region.
“The occupiers tried to break through our defenses along almost the entire front line,” the General Staff said in a statement.
Intensified assaults began Monday along a more than 480-kilometre (300-mile) front, focused on the Donbas regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, with Russian forces trying to advance in various sections, including from neighboring Kharkiv.
In southern Donetsk, the General Staff said the Russian military has continued to blockade and shell the strategic port city of Mariupol and fire missiles at other cities.
On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address that a “significant part of the entire Russian military is now focused on this offensive.”
Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for eight years in mostly Russian-speaking Donbas and have declared two independent republics that have been recognized by Russia. Russia has declared the capture of Donbas its main goal in the war since its attempt to seize the capital, kyiv, failed.
“No matter how many Russian troops are brought there, we will fight,” Zelenskyy promised. “We will defend ourselves.”
Before the offensive began, Russia shelled the western city of Lviv and other targets in what appeared to be an intensified attempt to break down Ukraine’s defenses.
On Monday morning, Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, told Ukrainian media that the defensive line had not been broken.
“Fortunately, our army is holding out,” Danilov said. “They passed through only two cities. This is Kreminna and another small town.”
There were street battles in Kreminna and Russian forces took control of the city, according to Luhansk Regional Military Administrator Serhiy Haidai. He told Ukrainian television that heavy artillery fire set seven residential buildings on fire and targeted a sports complex where the nation’s Olympic team trains.
Haidai said that before moving forward, Russian forces “began to level everything to the ground.” He said his forces withdrew to regroup and continue fighting.
In Mariupol, Denys Prokopenko, commander of the Ukrainian National Guard’s Azov Regiment, said in a video message that Russia had started dropping bunker-busting bombs at the Azovstal steel plant, where the regiment was holding out.
The sprawling plant contains a labyrinth of tunnels where both combatants and civilians take shelter. It is believed to be the last major pocket of resistance in the shattered city.
Russia has Mariupol surrounded and has been fighting a bloody battle to seize it. If Russia takes Mariupol, it would free up troops for use in other parts of the Donbas, deprive Ukraine of a vital port and complete a land bridge between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula seized from Ukraine since 2014.
In western Ukraine, near the Polish border, at least seven people were killed in missile strikes on Monday.
Lviv has been a haven for civilians fleeing fighting elsewhere. And in the face of growing anger from the Kremlin, the city has also become a major gateway for NATO-supplied weapons.
The attack hit three military infrastructure facilities and a mechanical workshop, according to the region’s governor, Maksym Kozytskyy.
A hotel housing Ukrainians who had fled fighting in other parts of the country was also heavily damaged, Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said.
“The nightmare of war has caught up with us even in Lviv,” said Lyudmila Turchak, who fled with two children from Kharkiv in the east.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was hit by shelling that killed at least three people, according to Associated Press reporters at the scene. One of the dead was a woman who appeared to be fetching water in the rain. She was found with a boat of water and an umbrella next to her.
Moscow said its missiles hit military targets in eastern and central Ukraine, including ammunition depots, command headquarters, and groups of troops and vehicles. It reported that its artillery hit hundreds of Ukrainian targets and that fighter jets carried out 108 strikes against troops and military equipment. The claims could not be independently verified.
General Richard Dannatt, a former British army chief, told Sky News that Russia was waging a “softening-up” campaign ahead of the Donbas offensive.
A senior US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss Pentagon assessments of the war, said there are now 76 Russian combat units, known as battalion tactical groups, in eastern and southern Russia. Ukraine, up from 65 last week. That could translate to around 50,000 to 60,000 soldiers, based on what the Pentagon said at the start of the war, the typical unit strength was 700 to 800 soldiers.
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Associated Press writers Nico Maounis and Philip Crowther in Lviv, Ukraine, and Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report, as did other AP staff members around the world.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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