Officials said Ukrainian soldiers were holding their positions in Sievierodonetsk amid fierce street warfare and day and night shelling as Russia pushed to take control of the bombed-out city, which is crucial to its goal of capturing eastern Ukraine.
On the opposite bank of the Siverskyi Donets river, Sievierodonetsk and its twin city Lysychansk are the final Ukrainian-controlled areas of Luhansk region, which Russia is aiming to conquer as one of its main war targets.
Oleksiy Danilov, the Secretary of Ukraine’s Security Council, stated on Thursday that the situation in Sievierodonetsk was ‘very problematic’ and that Russian forces were concentrating all of their resources in the area.
In an interview with Reuters, Danilov said, ‘They don’t spare their guys, they’re just sending men like cannon fodder… they’re firing our military day and night.’
Ukraine claims that the only way to change the tide in the small industrial city in its favour is to add more artillery to counter Russia’s overwhelming firepower.
The commander of Ukraine’s Svoboda National Guard Battalion, Petro Kusyk, said Ukrainians were dragging Russians into street fighting to neutralise their artillery advantage in a rare dispatch from the city.
‘Yesterday was a victory for us since we launched a counteroffensive and were able to push them back one or two blocks in some locations. They pushed us back in others, although only by a couple of buildings,’ in a televised interview, he stated.
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