DNIPRO, Ukraine — Russia claimed near-victory Tuesday in its fight for part of an eastern Ukrainian industrial region whose capture is one of Moscow’s main stated war aims, as Ukraine acknowledged that it was waging a tough battle to keep one of its last cities there from falling.
In the fourth month of the Russian invasion, Ukraine redoubled its pleas for more heavy weaponry to parry slow and grinding advances by Moscow’s troops, which are backed by relentless artillery fire, in the contested region known as the Donbas, made up of two eastern provinces, Luhansk and Donetsk.
Moscow’s triumphal claim came from Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who said in televised remarks that 97% of Luhansk had been “liberated” by Russian forces.
Separately on Tuesday, a Defense Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, said some Western-supplied military equipment deployed in the country’s east, including two U.S.-provided artillery systems, had been knocked out by Russian artillery, a claim that could not be independently verified.
Crucial to Moscow’s eastern campaign is control of the industrial city of Severodonetsk, one of only two major population centers in the region that Russia has not yet been able to capture.
Ukraine said its forces were holding on in Severodonetsk — but with difficulty.
“Our armed forces are doing their utmost to defend the city,” Mayor Oleksandr Stryuk told Ukrainian television Tuesday.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his overnight address to the nation, said “fierce street fighting” was underway to keep Severodonetsk in Ukrainian hands.
Ukrainian officials say Russia is throwing more and more military resources into the fight, and Western military officials said Tuesday that Russian forces are apparently trying to isolate the city by cutting off both northern and southern approaches.
“Russia will almost certainly need to achieve a breakthrough” in the area in order to consolidate tactical gains into “operational level success” in the wider region, British military intelligence said in its latest assessment.
Zelenskyy told his compatriots that Russia also has set its sights now on Zaporizhzhia, a major southeastern city of nearly three-quarters of a million people that is a gateway to central Ukraine. It is the capital of a province of the same name, and has served as an important way station for Ukrainians fleeing from heavily battered or Russian-occupied areas, such as the fallen city of Mariupol.
“We will do everything for the defense” of Zaporizhzhia and its environs, Zelenskyy said.
Along the eastern front lines, civilian suffering has intensified as bombardment rains down on cities, towns and villages in the path of Russia’s military push.
Over the last 24 hours, Russian forces have fired on more than 20 populated areas in the Donbas provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, the Ukrainian military said. In an operational report Tuesday, Ukraine’s military General Staff said that, in addition to aiming shellfire at towns and villages, Russia was launching airstrikes on Donetsk.
The Kremlin says it does not deliberately target civilians — which is considered a war crime — but on the ground, mainly elderly residents who have stayed behind face punishing daily barrages that force them to cower in makeshift underground shelters and endure primitive conditions reminiscent of life in pre-industrial times.
