Russia tightens noose around key Ukraine city

Russian forces on Thursday hammered the last Ukrainian defences holding a strategic city in the Donbas region as the war approached its 100th day and Washington warned it could still last for months.

Vladimir Putin’s troops have set their sights on capturing eastern Ukraine since Ukrainian forces repelled them from seizing Kyiv after the Russian invasion began on February 24.

Defending the east has come at a high cost for Ukraine, with President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly admitting that up to 100 Ukrainian soldiers are dying daily.

Russia’s invasion -- set to enter its 100th day on Friday -- has killed thousands of people and sent millions of Ukrainians fleeing.

The industrial hub of Severodonetsk in Lugansk, part of the Donbas, has become a key target for Moscow, and the local governor said that 80 percent of the city was already now under Russian control.

“The most difficult situation is in the Lugansk region, where the enemy is trying to displace our units,” said Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces in a statement.

“Street fighting continues” in Severodonetsk, said Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday on Telegram, vowing that Ukrainian forces would fight “until the end”. Severodonetsk’s Azot factory, one of Europe’s biggest chemical plants, was targeted by Russian soldiers who fired on one of its administrative buildings and a warehouse where methanol was stored.

Ukrainian troops were still holding an industrial zone, Gaiday said, a situation reminiscent of Mariupol where a huge steel works was the south-eastern port city’s last holdout until Ukrainian troops finally surrendered in late May. Ukraine -- one of the world’s main producers -- will likely export only half the amount of grain that it did in the previous season, the Ukrainian Grain Association said.

The conflict was already translating into huge costs for consumers purchasing essentials from cereals to sunflower oil to maize, with the poorest among the hardest hit.

The head of the African Union, Senegalese President Macky Sall, was preparing to travel to Russia for talks with Putin to avert a hunger crisis.