By Pavel Polityuk and Abdelaziz Boumzar
June 9, 20221:05 PM GMT+7
A Ukrainian serviceman walks in a destroyed grain silos after a morning shelling, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, near the town of Soledar, Donetsk region Ukraine June 8, 2022. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
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Summary
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Sievierodonetsk battle key to Donbas - Zelenskiy
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Industrial city is being destroyed, Luhansk governor
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Ukrainian troops pull back to city outskirts
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Russian troops outnumber Ukrainian in Donbas - U.S.
KYIV/SLOVIANSK, Ukraine, June 9 (Reuters) - The battle for the
Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk is brutal and will determine the fate of the
Donbas region, the country's president said, as Russian troops lay waste to the
city in an assault aimed at controlling eastern Ukraine.
After failing to take control of the capital Kyiv, the Kremlin
says it is now seeking to completely "liberate" the Donbas, where
Russian-backed separatists broke away from Ukrainian government control in
2014.
Around a third of the Donbas was held by the separatists before
the Feb. 24 invasion.
"This is a very brutal battle, very tough, perhaps one of
the most difficult throughout this war," Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskiy said in a video statement on Wednesday.
"Sievierodonetsk remains the epicentre of the encounter in
Donbas ... Largely, that is where the fate of our Donbas is being decided
now," he added.
Ukrainian fighters pulled back to the city's outskirts on
Wednesday but have vowed to fight there for as long as possible.
"The enemy fired on our units with mortars, artillery and
multiple rocket launchers," the Ukraine general staff said on
Thursday."It fired on civilian infrastructure in the settlements of
Sievierodonetsk, Lysychansk, Privillya, Ustynivka, Horske and
Katerynivka."
Russia denies targeting civilians.
Artillery shelling has turned the city in Ukraine's Luhansk
province to a bombed-out wasteland. Luhansk's regional governor, Serhiy Gaidai,
said the centre of the town was being destroyed.
Gaidai said a chemical plant has been shelled in Sievierodonetsk
and four civilians had been died in the region over the past 24 hours.
Ukrainian forces still control all of Sievierodonetsk's smaller
twin city Lysychansk on the west bank of the Siverskyi Donets River, but
Russian forces were destroying residential buildings there, Gaidai said.
Reuters could not independently verify the situation on the
ground in either city.
Kyiv's ambassador to the United States told CNN that Ukrainian
troops were vastly outnumbered in Luhansk and Donetsk, which collectively form
the Donbas, a largely Russian-speaking region.
But "as we already saw in the battle for Kyiv, we can lose
something temporarily. Of course, we're trying to minimize that because we know
what (can) happen (when) Russians control territories, but we will get it
back," Oksana Markarova said.
Gaidai said Russia now controlled more than 98% of Luhansk.
'GOD SAVED ME'
West of Sievierodonetsk in Sloviansk, one of the main Donbas
cities in Ukrainian hands, women with small children lined up to collect aid on
Wednesday while other residents carried buckets of water across the city.
Most residents have fled but authorities say around 24,000
remain in the city, in the path of an expected assault by Russian forces
regrouping to the north.
Albina Petrovna, 85, described the moment her building was
caught in an attack, which left her windows shattered and her balcony
destroyed.
"Broken glass fell on me but God saved me, I have scratches
everywhere," she said.
Ukraine's military said four people were killed during Russian
shelling on around 20 towns in the Donbas over the past 24 hours, and that its
troops had killed 31 Russian soldiers. Reuters could not immediately verify the
figures.
In Soledar, Donetsk, residents took shelter in basements as
shells hit the town on Wednesday.
"We are shelled day and night. The shelling is ongoing. We
stay in the basement almost all the time. The apartment is close, we run there
during the day. During the night we stay here," said a resident, who did
not provide her name.
Another resident, 65-year-old Antonina, sobbed and asked,
"When is it going to end?"
Kharkiv regional emergencies department said two people were
killed and four injured in a fire that was set off by shelling and spread
across a cafe, a groceries store and a school library.
Moscow says it is engaged in a "special military
operation" to disarm and "denazify" its neighbour. Ukraine and
its allies say Moscow has launched an unprovoked war of aggression, killing
thousands of civilians and flattening cities.
United Nations figures show more than 7 million people have
crossed the border from Ukraine since Russia invaded on Feb. 24.
GRAIN SCARE
Ukraine is one of the world's biggest grain exporters, and Western
countries accuse Russia of creating a risk of global famine by blockading
Ukraine's Black Sea and Azov Sea ports. Moscow says Western sanctions are
responsible for food shortages.
Turkey has been trying to broker negotiations to open up
Ukraine's Black Sea ports. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu hosted Russian
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday and said a U.N.-backed deal on the
ports was possible with further talks. read more
Lavrov said the Ukrainian ports could be opened, but Ukraine
would have to de-mine them first. Ukraine dismissed Russia's assurances as
"empty words" and said Russian attacks on farmland and agricultural
sites were exacerbating the crisis.
Vitaliy Kim, governor of the Mykolaiv region, where Russian
shelling destroyed the warehouses of one of Ukraine's largest agricultural
commodities terminals over the weekend, told Reuters Moscow was trying to scare
the world into meeting its terms. read more
The Kremlin cited Russian President Vladimir Putin as saying
Western sanctions must be lifted for Russian grain to reach markets. read more
Zelenskiy told a Yale University summit of business leaders by
video link on Wednesday that he believes Russia will not seek a diplomatic end
to the war unless the world supports Ukrainian troops in their fight.
"We are an independent, righteous, normal country,"
Zelenskiy said, adding about his troops' war efforts: "We do it on our
land and we slowly push them back. That's how we're going to keep on
moving."
Additional reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Rami Ayyub
and Michael Perry; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Lincoln Feast and Kim Coghill
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