Russia, meanwhile, said it hit a frontline training facility west of the capital.
In a series of failures in a three -month war, Russia has been monitoring the Donbas region with mines and coal factories, where Moscow -backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian troops for years and where they are already occupying the territories. Before invading the area.
But, like elsewhere, Russia’s advance was not as fast as expected and the struggle for control of Sievierdonetsk turned into a street battle that was relatively rare in combat.
“Intense fighting is continuing in the city itself, with street fights taking place with varying degrees of victory in the blocks,” Luhansk Governor Serh Haidai told The Associated Press. “The Ukrainian army is fighting on every street and house”.
Separately on Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had used air-launched missiles against a Ukrainian military base in the Zhytomyr region west of Kiev, saying mercenaries were being trained there.
No comment was made by the Ukrainian authorities on Russia’s claims. Moscow has repeatedly accused Ukraine of using mercenaries in the war. The foreigners fought as part of Ukraine’s regular military unit and some joined volunteer brigades, but it is not clear if they were mercenaries.
Zhytomyr has periodically experienced missile attacks, but most of the fighting and attacks were concentrated in eastern Ukraine.
Late Wednesday, Zelensky called the painful inch per inch battle the “epicenter” of the battle for Donbass for Sievierdonetsky and possibly one of the war’s toughest battles. The city was one of the last captured by the Russians in Lugansk, one of the two regions of Donbass.
“Many, that’s where our fate ends in Donbass,” Zelensky said in a video of his evening on the street in front of his office in Kiev.
Oleks Arestovich, an adviser from Zelensky’s office, said on Tuesday that Russian forces had changed combat tactics, retreated from Sievierdonetsk, hit it with artillery and air strikes, without much success.
They are also targeting the nearby city of Lisichansk “bombing day and night” and trying to raid the main road connecting Lisichansk and Bakhmut to the southwest, he said.
Proof of the enormous cost of human war It was founded when workers removed up to 100 bodies from each of the damaged buildings in the ruined city of Mariupol – a heinous effort described by an official as a “no last caravan of death. “
Petro Andriushchenko, the deputy mayor of the Russian-controlled port city, told the Telegram app that the bodies were being taken to morgues, landfills and other locations. Ukrainian authorities estimate that at least 21,000 civilians in Mariupol were killed in a week -long siege in Russia.
Reported by Karmanau from Lviv, Ukraine.
Source: Huffpost
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.