Russia seizes railroad hub, circles key city in E Ukraine

Kyiv/Popasna: Russian forces in eastern Ukraine captured the centre of the railway hub town of Lyman and encircled most of Sievierodonetsk city, Ukrainian officials said on Friday, as Kyiv’s forces fell back in the face of Moscow’s biggest advance for weeks.

Ukraine said its forces still held new defensive lines in the eastern Donbas region, despite apparent Russian advances on two major fronts there that showed how momentum has shifted in recent days. Moscow’s separatist proxies said they were in full control of Lyman, which Russia has attacked from the north in one major axes of its advance.

“I’m afraid that (President Vladimir) Putin, at great cost to himself and to the Russian military, is continuing to chew through ground in Donbas,” British PM Boris Johnson told Bloomberg UK. Ukrainian officials acknowledged that Russia had captured most of the town. But the defence ministry said forces were still blocking the Russians from launching an advance towards Sloviansk, a major city a half-hour drive further southwest. To the east, Russian forces had encircled two-thirds of Sievierodonetsk and destroyed 90% of its buildings, regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said. It is the biggest city held by Ukraine in the Donbas. Russia has been trying to trap Ukrainian forces there and in Lysychansk on the opposite river bank.