Russians control ‘half’ of Severodonetsk in east, Ukraine says

KYIV — Russian forces control half of the east Ukraine city of Severodonetsk, a Ukrainian military official says, as Moscow’s army continues an unrelenting push deeper into the Donbas region.

“Unfortunately, the front line divides the city in half. But the city is still defending itself, the city is still Ukrainian, our soldiers are defending it,” says Oleksandr Stryuk, head of the city’s military and civil administration, in a live broadcast.

After failing to capture the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in the early stages of the war, Russia has shifted its focus to the eastern Donbas region and is attempting to consolidate areas under its control.

Severodonetsk, which had a pre-war population of around 100,000 people, is one of several important urban hubs that lie on Russia’s path to capturing the entire Luhansk region and east Ukraine’s de facto administrative center, Kramatorsk.