Ukraine: Troops fight back Russians one street at a time in ‘completely ruined’ key city
- ‘The number of victims is rising every hour’ in Sievierodonetsk, ‘but we are unable to count the dead and the wounded amid the street fighting,’ mayor said
- The battle is a race against time for the Kremlin, which wants to capture the Donbas region before more Western arms arrive to bolster Ukraine’s defences
Russian troops pushed farther into the key eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk and fought street by street with Kyiv’s forces Monday in a battle the mayor said has left the city “completely ruined” and driven tends of thousands from their homes.
Military analysts painted the battle as part of a race against time for the Kremlin, which they said wants to complete its capture of the industrial Donbas region before more Western arms arrive to bolster Ukraine’s defences.
Weapons from the West already helped Kyiv’s forces thwart a Russian advance on the capital in the early weeks of the war.
That failure forced Moscow to withdraw, regroup, and pursue a more limited objective of seizing the Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists already held swathes of territory and have been fighting Ukrainian troops for eight years.
In recent days, the fighting has focused on Sievierodonetsk in a battle Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called “indescribably difficult”.
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Inside Kherson, the first Ukrainian city to fall under full Russian control
Relentless Russian artillery barrages have destroyed critical infrastructure and damaged 90 per cent of the buildings, and power and communications have been largely cut to a city that was once home to 100,000 people.