Russian forces continued on Tuesday to advance in the Donbass, an industrial basin in eastern Ukraine that they want to finish conquering, with the city of Sloviansk in their sights, the target of a violent bombardment which made at least two dead.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region where Sloviansk is located, said on Telegram that two people were killed and seven injured in the strikes, which hit the city’s central market. Journalists from Agence France-Presse saw rockets hitting the market, where they caused a fire, and adjacent streets. ” Once again, the Russians are intentionally targeting places where civilians congregate. This is terrorism plain and simple “, denounced the governor Kyrylenko, calling to evacuate.
After the fall on Sunday of Lyssytchansk, a strategic city for the conquest of Donbass, the Russian forces progress towards the west and Sloviansk, which had 100,000 inhabitants before the war. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to take the rest of Donbass, already partly controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014. Lysychansk was the last bastion important held by kyiv in the province of Lugansk, which with that of Donetsk forms the Donbass.
Westward Progress
On Tuesday, Russian troops advanced west towards Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the two largest cities in Donetsk province, still under Ukrainian control. In the morning, they were about ten kilometers from Siversk, which they have been shelling for several days, and therefore about fifty kilometers from Sloviansk. The Russian army said on Tuesday that it had bombed two Ukrainian command posts in Donetsk.
In the south, Moscow claimed to have shot down “ a Su-25 aircraft and three drones of the Ukrainian forces in the Kherson region », Statements impossible to verify from an independent source. A Russian official from the powerful security services (FSB) took over the government of the area occupied in this region by Russian forces on Tuesday, the local administration announced.
► To read also Capture of Lyssytchansk by the Russians: “One more step towards the total conquest of Donbass”
Russia also said on Tuesday that it was investigating torture allegedly suffered by Russian soldiers captured by Ukrainian forces and released during a prisoner exchange with Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia, which have carried out several prisoner exchanges, accuse each other of ill-treatment and torture of prisoners.
(With AFP)