Kyiv: Russia claimed Tuesday it has occupied large swathes of eastern Ukraine after a relentless, weeks-long barrage and the recent deployment of more troops.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Moscow's forces have liberated 97 per cent of the Luhansk region.
Russia appears bent on capturing the entire eastern Donbas part of Ukraine, which is made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. That goal appears to be its most immediate ambition in Ukraine.
But while the Kremlin's forces have superior firepower, the Ukrainians defenders among them the country's most well-trained forces are entrenched and have shown the capability to counterattack.
Shoigu claimed that Russian forces have seized the residential quarters of Sievierodonetsk and are fighting to take control of an industrial zone on its outskirts and the nearby towns.
Sievierodonetsk, the administrative center of the Luhansk region, has recently been the focus of the Russian offensive. Sievierodonetsk and nearby Lysychansk are the only two Donbas cities holding out against the Russian invasion, which is being helped by local pro-Kremlin forces.
Shoigu added that the Russian troops were pressing their offensive toward the town of Popasna and noted that they have taken control of Lyman and Sviatohirsk and 15 other towns in the region. Popasna is a town with a pre-war population of 20,000 located about 30 kilometers (nearly 20 miles) south of Sievierodonetsk. A Ukrainian official said Tuesday that Moscow is deploying troop reinforcements in eastern Ukraine as a Russian artillery barrage aimed to grind down Ukrainian defences. Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai conceded that Russian forces control the industrial outskirts of Sievierodonetsk, one of two cities in the Luhansk region still in Ukrainian hands.