On Tuesday, Russian forces launched an all-out attack to encircle Ukrainian troops in twin cities straddling a river in eastern Ukraine, a struggle that might determine whether Moscow’s primary push in the east succeeds or fails.
Authorities in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, were due to open the subterranean metro three months after Russia invaded the country, where thousands of residents had sought refuge for months under continuous shelling.
The reopening symbolises Ukraine’s biggest military victory in recent weeks: forcing Russian forces out of artillery range of Kharkiv, just as they did from Kyiv in March.
However, the war’s most important engagements are still going further south, where Moscow is aiming to conquer the Donbas region comprising two eastern provinces, Donetsk and Luhansk, and trap Ukrainian forces in a pocket on the main eastern front.
The city of Sievierodonetsk on the east bank of the Siverskiy Donets river and its twin Lysychansk on the west bank have become the critical battlefield in the easternmost area of the Ukrainian-held Donbas pocket, with Russian forces moving from three directions to encircle them.
‘The enemy has concentrated its efforts on launching an offensive to encircle Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk,’ said Serhiy Gaidai, governor of Luhansk, adding that the two cities are among Ukraine’s last remaining territory.
‘The intensity of fire on Sievierodonetsk has grown by multiple times; they are literally destroying the city,’ he claimed on television, adding that the city was home to roughly 15,000 people and that the Ukrainian military was still in charge.
On Monday, Reuters journalists in the Donbas heard and saw severe shelling on the route towards Lysychansk as they approached Bakhmut further west. Ukrainian armoured vehicles, tanks, and rocket launchers, as well as buses carrying personnel, were advancing towards the front lines.
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