A day after Moscow declared victory in neighboring Luhansk province, Russian forces are engaged in heavy fighting in a major offensive against Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Ukrainian officials said. The attack is supported by heavy artillery fire.
Donetsk and Luhansk together form the Donetsk Basin, the industrialized eastern part of Ukraine where the biggest battle in Europe for generations is taking place. Russia says it wants to take control of the entire Donets Basin from Ukraine on behalf of Moscow-backed separatists in two self-declared people’s republics.
After Russian forces took control of Lysychansk, the last bastion of the Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk, on Sunday, Ukrainian officials said they now expect Moscow to focus the battle on the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk in Donetsk.
There was fierce fighting at the border of Luhansk, the governor of that region, Serhiy Gaidai, told Ukrainian television. He said the Russian regular army and reserve troops were apparently sent to the area to cross the Siverskiy Donets River.
‘The hospitals are overcrowded, just like the morgues’
“They are suffering heavy losses,” Gaidai said. “Some battalions have been moved there to replenish the numbers they need…They don’t take all their wounded. The hospitals are overcrowded, as are the morgues.”
The governor continued: “There is still a lot of shelling in both Luhansk and Donetsk regions. They are shelling everything in their path.” news agency Reuters could not independently verify the statements.
Russian troops hit a market and residential area in Sloviansk, killing at least two and wounding seven, local officials said.
A reporter from Reuters saw yellow smoke billowing from an auto supply store and flames engulfing rows of market stalls as firefighters tried to put out the blaze.
Sloviansk and nearby Kramatorsk have been heavily shelled, Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said. “There is no safe place without shelling in the Donetsk region.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, calling it a “special military operation” to demilitarize the country, exterminate nationalists and protect Russian speakers.
Kyiv and the West say Russia is committing an unprovoked imperial land grab in its former Soviet republic and accuse Moscow of war crimes.
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