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KRAMATORSK, Ukraine , May 30 (AP) \u2014 Russian troops pushed farther into a key eastern Ukrainian city and fought street by street with Kyiv\u2019s forces Monday in a battle the mayor said has left the city \u201ccompletely ruined\u201d and driven tens of thousands from their homes.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s defenses. Weapons from the West have already helped Kyiv\u2019s 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 swaths of territory and have been fighting Ukrainian troops for eight years.<\/p>\n
In recent days, the fighting has focused on Sievierodonetsk in a battle Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called \u201cindescribably difficult.\u201d Relentless Russian artillery barrages have destroyed critical infrastructure and damaged 90% of the buildings, and power and communications have been largely cut to a city that was once home to 100,000 people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe number of victims is rising every hour, but we are unable to count the dead and the wounded amid the street fighting,\u201d Mayor Oleksandr Striuk told The Associated Press in a phone interview, adding that Moscow\u2019s troops advanced a few more blocks toward the city center.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city has been completely ruined,\u201d he added, and only about 12,000 to 13,000 residents remain, sheltering in basements and bunkers to escape the Russian bombardment \u2014 a situation that recalls the siege of Mariupol that trapped residents and led to some of the worst suffering of the war.<\/p>\n
While tens of thousands are believed to have died in Mariupol, Striuk estimated that 1,500 civilians have died in his city since the war began, from Russian attacks as well as from the dire conditions, including a lack of medicine or medical treatment.<\/p>\n
The Ukrainian military said Russian forces reinforced their positions on the northeastern and southeastern outskirts of Sievierodonetsk, 145 kilometers (90 miles) south of the Russian border in an area that is the last pocket of Ukrainian government control in Luhansk province.<\/p>\n
Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai said the Russians were also pushing toward nearby Lysychansk. He said two civilians were killed and another five were wounded in the latest Russian shelling. Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk sit on either side of the strategically important Siverskiy Donetsk River.<\/p>\n
The Russian advance in Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk is part of an all-out push \u2014 executed without regard for personnel and equipment losses, said Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is an impression that Russia has set the goal to seize Donbas at any cost,\u201d said Zhdanov. \u201cThe Kremlin has reckoned that it can\u2019t afford to waste time and should use the last chance to extend the separatist-controlled territory because the arrival of Western weapons in Ukraine could make it impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Ukrainians hope they can hold the Russians off long enough for them to run out of steam \u2014 or for more Western weapons to arrive. But Mykola Sunhurovskyi, a military expert at the Kyiv-based Razumkov Center think tank, said those are taking a long time to arrive \u2014 given the Russians an opening.<\/p>\n
Russian pressure also continued in the south on Monday. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said an artillery strike on a shipyard in the southern port of Mykolaiv destroyed Ukrainian armored vehicles parked there.<\/p>\n
In the Kherson region, the Russia-installed deputy head of the regional administration, Kirill Stremousov, told Russia\u2019s Tass state news agency that grain from last year\u2019s harvest is being delivered to Russian buyers, adding that \u201cobviously there is a lot of grain here.\u201d Ukraine has accused Russia of looting grain from territories its forces hold, and the U.S. has alleged Moscow is jeopardizing global food supplies by preventing Ukraine from exporting its harvest.<\/p>\n
Zelenskyy was set to address a gathering of European Union leaders later Monday, as they sought to show their solidarity with Ukraine despite divisions over whether to target Russian oil in a new series of sanctions. The Ukrainian leader has repeatedly demanded that the EU target Russia\u2019s lucrative energy sector and deprive Moscow of billions of dollars each day in supply payments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KRAMATORSK, Ukraine , May 30 (AP) \u2014 Russian troops pushed farther into a key eastern Ukrainian city and fought street by street with Kyiv\u2019s forces Monday in a battle the mayor said has left the city \u201ccompletely ruined\u201d and driven tens of thousands from their homes. Military analysts painted the battle as part of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-191897","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}