Russians battle block by block in city in eastern Ukraine
Russian troops pushed deeper into a key eastern Ukrainian city, fighting street by street against Kyiv’s forces Monday in a battle that the mayor said has left Sievierodonetsk in ruins and driven tens of thousands of people from their homes.
Military analysts described the fight for Sievierodonetsk as part of a race against time for the Kremlin. The city is important to Russian efforts to quickly complete the capture of the eastern industrial region of the Donbas before more Western arms arrive to bolster Ukraine’s defense.
Weapons from the West 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 the 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.
“The Kremlin has reckoned that it can’t 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,” Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said.
In a potential setback for Ukraine, however, President Joe Biden appeared to dismiss reports that the U.S. was considering sending long-range rocket systems to the country.
In addition to pleading for weapons from allies, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also repeatedly urged that European countries and others punish Russia with sanctions and embargoes on Moscow’s energy sector. In a video address Monday to EU leaders, Zelenskyy asked the 27 nations of the bloc to target Russian oil exports so Moscow “feels the price for what it is doing against Ukraine.”
European Union leaders reached a compromise Monday to impose a partial oil embargo on Russia. The watered-down embargo covers only Russian oil brought in by sea, allowing a temporary exemption for imports delivered by pipeline.
EU Council President Charles Michel said on Twitter that the agreement covers more than two-thirds of oil imports from Russia, “cutting a huge source of financing for its war machine. Maximum pressure on Russia to end the war.”
Russia has also sought to use its energy exports to its advantage, cutting off natural gas to a handful of European countries in an effort to punish and divide the West over its support for Ukraine. In its latest move, Russian state gas giant Gazrpom said it will halt gas supplies to Dutch gas trader GasTerra starting Tuesday.
In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said the situation in the Donbas remains “extremely difficult” as Russia has put its army’s “maximum combat power” there.
The Ukrainian military said Russian forces reinforced their positions on the northeastern and southeastern outskirts of Sievierodonetsk, a city 90 miles south of the Russian border in an area that is the last pocket of Ukrainian government control in Luhansk.
Sievierodonetsk Mayor Oleksandr Striuk said the city has been “completely ruined.” 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, he said.
“The number of victims is rising every hour, but we are unable to count the dead and the wounded amid the street fighting,” Striuk told The Associated Press in a phone interview, adding that Moscow’s troops advanced a few more blocks toward the city center.
He said that only about 12,000 to 13,000 residents remain, sheltering in basements and bunkers to escape the Russian bombardment. The situation recalls the siege of Mariupol, which trapped residents and led to some of the worst suffering of the war.
Striuk estimated that 1,500 civilians have died in Sievierodonetsk since the war began, from Russian attacks as well as from dire conditions that include a lack of medicine and medical treatment. More than 20,000 are feared dead in Mariupol.
The Russian advance in Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk on either side of the strategically important Siverskiy Donetsk River is part of an all-out push, said Zhdanov, the Ukrainian military analyst.
EU LEADERS REACHED A COMPROMISE ABOUT RUSSIAN OIL. THE WATERED-DOWN EMBARGO COVERS ONLY RUSSIAN OIL BROUGHT IN BY SEA, ALLOWING A TEMPORARY EXEMPTION FOR IMPORTS DELIVERED BY PIPELINE.