Olha Berezovska and sons Andrii and Oleksii in a shelter in the Donetsk city of Sloviansk
(Picture: REUTERS)Vladimir Putin’s forces entered the outskirts of Severodonetsk in eastern Ukraine on Monday as he throws huge number of troops into attacks, reportedly leading to heavy losses including of mid-ranking and junior officers.
Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said “very fierce” fighting was happening in the city as Russian troops sought to advance into its southeastern and northeastern suburbs.
Ukrainian soldiers were defending areas largely reduced to ruins by incessant shelling which had killed two civilians and wounded five others, he added.
But Ukrainian forces were reported to have pushed back Russian attempts to seize a key road into the area, which if it fell would mean Mr Putin’s troops would have encircled it.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the situation in Severodonetsk as “indescribably difficult,” with a relentless Russian artillery barrage damaging 90 per cent of its buildings.
“Capturing Severodonetsk is a principal task for the occupation force,” Mr Zelensky said in a late-night address, adding that the Russians do not care about casualties.
Severodonetsk has emerged in recent days as the epicentre of the Kremlin’s aim of capturing all of Ukraine’s eastern industrial Donbas region. Russia also stepped up its efforts to seize the nearby city of Lysychansk, where civilians rushed to escape shelling. The two eastern cities span the strategically important Siverskiy Donetsk River. They are the last major areas under Ukrainian control in Luhansk province, which makes up the Donbas together with the adjacent Donetsk province.
But amid reports of heavy Russian casualties, UK defence chiefs said Mr Putin’s army has suffered “devastating losses” among officers. They added in their latest intelligence update that the scale of the fatalities was likely to harm the Russian military’s control over the invasion, now into its fourth month.
The UK defence chiefs believe a lack of “experienced and credible platoon and company commanders” is likely to hit the morale and discipline of the Russian president’s forces. The UK and allies are involved in a crucial information war against Russia and so are highlighting the weaknesses and failures of Mr Putin’s military campaign in Ukraine.
Britain’s armed forces minister James Heappey has said that more than 20,000 Russian military personnel have been killed in Ukraine. Thousnds of Ukrainian soldiers are also believed to have been killed, as well as tens of thousands of civilians, some murdered in war crimes.
Meanwhile, Mr Zelensky visited soldiers in Kharkiv and said: “I feel boundless pride in our defenders.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told French TV that Moscow’s “unconditional priority is the liberation of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” as EU leaders met today to discuss a new sanctions package against Russia including an oil embargo.
