Ukraine said on Friday its forces may need to retreat from their last pocket of resistance in Luhansk to avoid being captured by Russian troops pressing an advance in the east.
A withdrawal could bring President Vladimir Putin closer to his goal of capturing Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk regions in full. His troops have gained ground in the two areas collectively known as the Donbas while blasting some towns to wastelands.
Luhansk’s governor, Serhiy Gaidai, said Russian troops had entered Sievierodonetsk, the largest Donbas city still held by Ukraine, after trying to trap Ukrainian forces there for days. Gaidai said 90 per cent of buildings in the town were damaged.
“The Russians will not be able to capture Luhansk region in the coming days as analysts have predicted,” Mr Gaidai said on Telegram, referring to Sievierodonetsk and its twin city Lysychansk across the Siverskiy Donets River.
“We will have enough strength and resources to defend ourselves. However it is possible that in order not to be surrounded we will have to retreat.”
Follow the latest updates below.
12:50 AM
Putin ‘continuing to chew through’ Donbas, says Johnson
Boris Johnson told Bloomberg UK that Putin “at great cost to himself and to the Russian military, is continuing to chew through ground in Donbas”.
Russian troops advanced after piercing Ukrainian lines last week in the city of Popasna, south of Sievierodonetsk. Russian ground forces have now captured several villages northwest of Popasna, Britain’s Defence Ministry said.
Reached by Reuters journalists in Russian-held territory on Thursday, Popasna was in ruins.
12:23 AM
‘Stop playing’ with Russia and end war, Zelensky tells West
President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the West to stop playing around with Russia and impose tougher sanctions on Moscow to end its “senseless war” in Ukraine, adding his country would remain independent, the only question was at what price.
Mr Zelensky’s criticism of the West has mounted in recent days as the European Union moves slowly towards a possible Russian oil embargo and as thousands of Russian forces try to encircle two key eastern cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.
12:03 AM
Today’s Top Stories
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Russia is having to pull out of deep storage 60-year-old tanks to replace the hundreds already lost on the battlefield. It is turning to ageing fleets of tanks to fill gaps in the ranks in no small part due to the successful employment by brave and innovative Ukrainian anti-tank teams of Western-supplied weaponry.
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Germany was on Friday accused of deliberately watering down the EU’s planned embargo on Russian oil imports to benefit its own economy.
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Millions of Ukrainians have fled west directly into Europe, but hundreds of thousands of people from northern and eastern Ukraine have had to flee fighting through Russia, which they were forced to enter. But now, in another successful act of defiance against Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine, Russian volunteers are helping them escape.
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Boris Johnson on Friday called for advanced long-range weapons to be sent to Ukraine as Russia makes “palpable progress” in the eastern Donbas region.
