Russian forces storming town in eastern Ukraine, bloggers say
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Ukrainian servicemen driving a car in the town of Selydove, in Donetsk region, on Oct 9.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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MOSCOW - Russian forces are fighting street-to-street battles with Ukrainian troops in the outskirts of the eastern Ukrainian town of Selydove as Moscow’s forces push to gain control over the whole of the Donbas region, said pro-Russian bloggers.
Russian forces, which President Vladimir Putin ordered into Ukraine in February 2022,
The thrust of the Russian advance over recent months has been in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, which Mr Putin says he wants to gain full control over.
In recent weeks, Russia has surrounded towns in the Donetsk region and then slowly constricted them until Ukrainian units are forced to withdraw. According to bloggers, they are doing the same to Selydove, which had a pre-war population of over 20,000.
“Street by street fighting is going on in the town,” said Mr Yuri Podolyaka, a prominent Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger. “The assault on Selydove has intensified.”
Other pro-Russian bloggers published video of intensive shelling of Selydove. Reuters was unable to immediately verify the footage. The Russian Defence Ministry did not comment and there was no immediate comment from Kyiv.
Russia controls about 80 per cent of Donbas, which covers an area about half the size of the US state of Ohio, and is pushing westwards along about 100km of the 1200km front around the tactically important towns of Pokrovsk and Kurakhove.
The 2½-year-old Ukraine war is entering what Russian officials say is its most dangerous phase as Russian forces advance and the West ponders how the war will end.
Ukraine wants Nato membership, a step that Russia has said would be unacceptable. The United States and key Nato powers have not publicly endorsed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s call for an immediate invitation to be a Nato member.
Russian forces, which have taken about a fifth of Ukraine, control 98.5 per cent of the Luhansk region and 60 per cent of the Donetsk region. Together, the two regions make up the Donbas, which is the cradle of the war.
After a pro-Russian president was toppled in Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan Revolution, Russia annexed Crimea and pro-Russian protests broke out in parts of the Donbas, where Moscow began supporting separatist forces. REUTERS
