Intense fighting continues around east Ukraine city
Ukrainian forces on Sunday resisted a Russian assault on Sievierodonetsk, the largest city they still hold in the Luhansk region of the Donbas, but endured heavy artillery barrages, Ukrainian officials said. The shelling was so intense it was not possible to assess casualties and damage, Luhansk governor Serhiy Gaidai said. Dozens of buildings have been destroyed in the past few days. "The situation has extremely escalated," Gaidai said. The Ukrainian government meanwhile urged the West to provide it with more longer-range weapons in order to turn the tide in the war, now in its fourth month. The battle for Sievierodonetsk, which lies on the eastern side of the Siverskyi Donets River, has become the focus of attention as Russia ekes out slow but solid gains in the Donbas, comprising of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Russia has concentrated huge firepower on a small area, a contrast to earlier phases of the conflict when its forces were often spread thinly. Gaidai said Russian forces had dug in at the Myr hotel on Sievierodonetsk's northern edge. "They cannot advance further into the city and are taking casualties, but we are not able right now to push them out of the hotel," he said on Telegram on Sunday. Analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said the Russians had still not managed to encircle city and the Ukrainian defenders have inflicted "fearful casualties" on them. But the Ukrainians were also taking serious losses themselves, civilians as well as combatants, they said in a briefing paper. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the military situation in the Donbas - parts of which are controlled by Moscow-backed separatists - was very complicated but defences were holding up in several places, including Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. "It's indescribably difficult there. And I am grateful to all those who withstood this onslaught," he said in his nightly video address. Russia says it is waging a "special military operation" to demilitarise Ukraine and rid it of nationalists threatening Russian-speakers there. (Reuters)