By Pavel Polityuk
Kyiv (Reuters) – Ukrainian forces were successfully resisting the assault on Sievierodonetsk, the General Staff said on Wednesday, while Russian troops were bringing new resources into Donbas in an intense battle for control of the eastern region.
The multi-day battle for the industrial city has become pivotal, with Russia focusing its offensive might in hopes of achieving one of its stated goals: fully capturing the surrounding Lugansk province on behalf of Russian-speaking separatists.
“The absolutely heroic defense of Donbas is ongoing,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video statement on Tuesday. Sievierodonetsk, Lysychansk and Popasna remain the most difficult places, he added.
“It is absolutely felt that the occupiers did not believe that the resistance of our army would be so strong and now they are trying to bring new resources into the Donbas,” he said.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the situation on the ground.
Since being pushed out of Kyiv and Kharkiv, Russia has focused on the region known as Donbas, made up of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, and the closest to the Russian border.
Moscow says it is involved in a “special military operation” to disarm and “denazify” its neighbor.
Ukraine and its allies call this a baseless pretext for a war that has killed thousands, leveled cities and forced millions to flee. Zelenskiy said Ukraine would release a “Book of Executioners” next week to detail war crimes.
“These are concrete facts about concrete individuals guilty of concrete cruel crimes against Ukrainians,” he said.
Russia says it has taken pains to avoid targeting civilians in its operation in Ukraine.
BOMBING
Satellite images from Maxar Technologies collected on Monday showed significant damage in Sievierodonetsk and nearby Rubizhne.
“Our soldiers are successfully holding off the assault on the city of Sievierodonetsk,” Ukraine’s General Staff said on Wednesday, adding that its troops were also holding off attacks on Toshkivka and Ustynivka to the south.
Reuters could not immediately verify the reports.
Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai said on Wednesday that Lysychansk, which is across the river from Sievierodonetsk, was also under shelling. A local man was killed on a central street on Tuesday and a woman was hospitalized, he added.
In Sloviansk, some 85 km (53 miles) west of Sievierodonetsk, women with young children lined up to collect aid on Tuesday as other residents carried buckets of water through the city as they prepared for advancing Russian forces.
“I am going to stay, I am not going to leave without my husband. He works here. We decided that, we are going to stay,” said Irina, who did not provide her last name, as she waited with a child in a stroller outside an aid distribution center.
“It’s hard, but it’s easier when you’re at home.”
Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, was also attacked on Tuesday and the local mayor said one person was killed. The northeastern city had been quieter in recent weeks.
Viacheslav Shulga, an employee of a pizzeria in northern Kharkiv that was attacked, said there was hope the restaurant could reopen soon.
“Everything is destroyed. We are removing equipment, there will be no business here for now,” she said.
More than two weeks after the siege of the southern city of Mariupol ended, the Tass news agency quoted a Russian police source as saying that more than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered there have been transferred to Russia for investigation.
GLOBAL CRISIS
As the effects of the war are felt around the world, the United States has added more sanctions to Moscow by prohibiting American money managers from buying any Russian debt or shares on secondary markets.
The World Bank has approved $1.49 billion in fresh funds to help pay the salaries of government and social workers in Ukraine as it and other countries deal with damage to their economies.
Ukraine is one of the world’s largest grain exporters, and Western countries accuse Russia of creating the risk of global famine by closing Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.
Russian attacks on agricultural sites in the Mykolaiv region were exacerbating a global food crisis, Ukraine’s southern military command said on Facebook on Wednesday.
“Those pretending to be concerned about the global food crisis are in fact attacking farmland and infrastructure sites where fires of a significant scale have broken out,” he said.
The governor of the region that includes the port of Mykolaiv said weekend shelling had destroyed warehouses at one of Ukraine’s largest agricultural terminals.
Moscow denies responsibility for the international food crisis and blames Western sanctions.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the Russian-occupied Ukrainian ports of Berdyansk and Mariupol were ready to resume grain exports. Ukraine says any such shipment from territory seized by Moscow would amount to illegal looting.
(Reuters Reporting; Writing by Himani Sarkar; Editing by Michael Perry)
Reference-news.yahoo.com