A regional governor said on Tuesday that Russian troops were slowly advancing towards the city centre of Sievierodonetsk, providing an update from a pocket of Ukrainian resistance that has held back the broader Russian offensive in the eastern Donbas region.
The governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, told Ukrainian state television that there were about 15,000 civilians left in Sievierodonetsk after most of the city’s 120,000 residents fled the brutal bombardment by Russian artillery.
Getting ready for the worst, Gadai stated that Ukrainian troops defending Sievierodonetsk could flee across the Siverskyi Donets river to the city of Lysychansk to avoid being surrounded.
As the Russian offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region continued, the European Union agreed on Monday to ban most Russian oil imports, putting a dent in the Kremlin’s war finances.
European Council President Charles Michel said the ban agreed at an EU summit in Brussels on Monday would immediately cover more than two-thirds of Russia’s oil imports and cut a ‘huge source of financing for its war machine,’ in the bloc’s toughest sanction on Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine three months ago.
EU leaders said they had agreed to cut 90 percent of Russia’s oil imports by the end of this year, with exceptions for Hungary, a landlocked country that relies heavily on crude piped from Russia, and the United Kingdom.
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