BUILDINGS DESTROYED
Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region said in a brief Facebook post they had been on the defensive all day, fending off seven Russian attacks and destroying a tank.
About 90 per cent of buildings in Sievierodonetsk were damaged, Governor Gaidai said, with 14 high-rise buildings destroyed in the latest shelling. Several dozen medical staff were staying on in Sievierodonetsk, but they faced difficulty just getting to hospitals because of the shelling, he said.
Reuters could not independently verify the information.
Analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said that while Russian forces had begun direct assaults on built-up areas of Sievierodonetsk, they were likely to struggle to take ground in the city itself.
“Russian forces have performed poorly in operations in built-up urban terrain throughout the war,” they said.
Zelenskyy said the military situation in the Donbas was very complicated, adding that defences were holding up in a number of places, including Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.
“It’s indescribably difficult there. And I am grateful to all those who withstood this onslaught,” he said in his late-night video address.
The British defence ministry said in its daily intelligence report that if Russia succeeded in taking over those areas, the Kremlin would likely view it as a “substantive political achievement”, one it could use to justify its invasion to the Russian people.
In a television interview, Zelenskyy said he believed Russia would agree to talks if Ukraine can recapture all the territory it has lost since the invasion began on Feb 24.
Still, Zelenskyy ruled out the idea of using force to win back all the land Ukraine has lost to Russia since 2014, which also includes Crimea, which Moscow annexed that year.
“I do not believe that we can restore all of our territory by military means. If we decide to go that way, we will lose hundreds of thousands of people,” he said.
Russia says it is waging a “special military operation” to demilitarise Ukraine and rid it of nationalists threatening Russian-speakers there. Kyiv and Western countries say Russia’s claims are a false pretext for war.
Thousands of people, including many civilians, have been killed and several million have fled their homes, either for safer parts of Ukraine or to other countries.
Ukraine’s General Staff said on Saturday that multiple Russian strikes had hit communities and infrastructure near Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city. A solar power station in the region was badly damaged after an apparent missile strike, a Reuters photographer said.
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