Russia tightens grip on key cities as battle for Donbas rages

The battle for control of the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas raged on Sunday as Russian forces tightened their grip around the key cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.

The situation in Lysychansk had become “significantly worse”, the regional governor of the Lugansk region, Sergiy Gaiday, said on the messaging service, Telegram.

“A Russian shell fell on a residential building, a girl died and four people were hospitalised,” he said.

Meanwhile, on the eastern bank of the Donets River, Russian forces “carried out assault operations in the area of the city of Severodonetsk,” according to the Ukrainian general staff.

Fighting was advancing street-by-street in the city, Gaiday said.

More than three months after Moscow invaded its pro-Western neighbour, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for “direct serious negotiations” between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. The two European leaders also “insisted on an immediate ceasefire and a withdrawal of Russian troops” in an 80-minute phone call with the Russian leader on Saturday, the German chancellor’s office said.

Very difficult

Since failing to capture the capital Kyiv in the early stages of the war, Russia has shifted its focus to the eastern Donbas region as it attempts to consolidate areas under its control.

“The situation is very difficult, especially in those areas in the Donbas and Kharkiv regions, where the Russian army is trying to squeeze at least some result for itself,” Zelensky said in his daily address to the nation late Saturday.

Earlier, Russia’s defence ministry had said the “town of Krasny Liman (Moscow’s name for Lyman) has been entirely liberated from Ukrainian nationalists.” Lyman lies on the road to Kramatorsk and Severodonetsk, which is “now surrounded,” according to a police official in Lugansk province cited by Russian state media.

But governor Gaiday insisted that “Severodonetsk has not been cut off.

“There is still the possibility to deliver humanitarian aid,” he told Ukrainian television. In Severodonetsk, where an estimated 15,000 civilians remain, a local official said “constant shelling” made it increasingly difficult to get in or out.

“Evacuation is very unsafe, it’s isolated cases when we manage to get people out. Now the priority is for the wounded and people who need serious medical assistance,” said Oleksandr Stryuk, head of the city’s military and civil administration.

The water supply was also increasingly unstable, as a lack of electricity meant the pumps at city wells no longer functioned, he said.

Residents had gone more than two weeks without a mobile phone connection, he added.