Moscow is trying to encircle Ukrainian forces and fully capture the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces that make up the Donbas and where Moscow backs separatist forces.
Kyiv said on Monday Russian forces had tried to storm Sievierodonetsk but were unsuccessful and retreated. The city lies in the easternmost part of a Ukrainian-held pocket of the Donbas and one of the last areas of Luhansk still outside Russia’s grip.
Luhansk governor Serhiy Gaidai said Russia was “wiping Sievierodonetsk from the face of the earth” and trying to advance from three directions: to overrun Sievierodonetsk, cut off a highway south of it and cross the river further west.
WAR CRIMES TRIAL
At the trial in Kyiv, Judge Serhiy Agafonov said 21-year-old tank commander Vadim Shishimarin, carrying out an order by a soldier of higher rank, had fired several shots at the victim’s head from an automatic weapon.
Shishimarin pleaded guilty to killing 62-year-old Oleksandr Shelipov in the northeastern Ukrainian village of Chupakhivka on Feb 28, four days after Russian troops rolled over the border.
Shishimarin, standing in a reinforced glass box in the courtroom, showed no emotion as the verdict was read out.
The trial, which began only last week, has huge symbolic significance for Ukraine, which has accused Russia of atrocities and widespread brutality against civilians
The Kremlin did not comment on the verdict. It has previously said that it has no information about the trial.
The head of the Moscow-backed separatists in Donetsk, Denis Pushpin, said Ukrainian prisoners of war captured at the Azovstal steel-works in Mariupol could also face tribunals.
“Now, they are being kept on the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic. It is planned to organiser an international tribunal later.”
Ukraine has been trying to secure a prisoner swap for the fighters who surrendered last week in Mariupol. A Russian deputy foreign minister was quoted as saying Moscow could discuss a swap.
In other developments, a Russian diplomat at the country’s permanent mission at the United Nations in Geneva said he was leaving his post because of his disagreement with Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, a rare political resignation over the war.
Boris Bondarev, who identified himself on LinkedIn as a counsellor who worked on arms control, told Reuters: “The scale of this disaster drove me to do it.”
“I simply cannot any longer share in this bloody, witless and absolutely needless ignominy.”
At a cemetery outside Mariupol, a grief-stricken mother named Natalya sobbed inconsolably on Sunday as she mourned her only son.
Vladimir Voloshin, 28, was killed on Mar 26 when shrapnel smashed into his skull and chest in the fight for the city.
The 57-year-old Natalya said he had just graduated from a naval academy when Ukraine announced a general mobilisation to counter the Russian invasion.
“He had been supposed to set sail in February,” she said between sobs. “But then the war started. For no reason at all.”
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