Russia condemns EU’s decision to accept Ukraine’s membership bid

After weeks of ferocious fighting, Ukrainian forces have begun retreating from a besieged city in the country’s east to move to stronger positions, a regional official said Friday, the four-month mark in Russia’s invasion.

The planned withdrawal from Sievierodonetsk, the administrative centre of the Luhansk region, comes after relentless Russian bombardment that has reduced most of the industrial city to rubble and cut its population from 100,0000 to 10,000. Ukrainian troops fought the Russians in house-to-house battles before retreating to the huge Azot chemical factory on the city’s edge, where they remain holed up in its sprawling underground structures in which about 500 civilians also found refuge.

In recent days, Russian forces have made gains around Sievierodonetsk and the neighbouring city of Lysychansk, on a steep bank across a river, in a bid to encircle Ukrainian forces.

Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk have been the focal point of the Russian offensive aimed at capturing all of the Donbas and destroying the Ukrainian military defending it — the most capable and battle-hardened segment of the country’s armed forces. The two cities and surrounding areas are the last major pockets of Ukrainian resistance in the Luhansk region — 95 per cent of which is under Russian and local separatist forces’ control. The Russians and separatists also control about half of the Donetsk region, the second province in the Donbas.

Associated Press