Russia-Ukraine live updates | Ukraine says troops may retreat from eastern region as Russia advances

Here are the latest developments from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelesnkyy spoke defiantly on May 27 in two speeches about his country’s ultimate victory over Russian forces in both the most pressing battle in eastern Ukraine and the war, generally.

“Ukraine is a country that has destroyed the myth about the extraordinary power of the Russian army - an army that supposedly, in a few days, could conquer anyone it wants,” he told Stanford University students by video. “Now Russia is trying to occupy the entire state but we feel strong enough to think about the future of Ukraine, which will be open to the world.”

Meanwhile, Russia pressed its deadly offensive to capture key points in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, with more bombing of residential areas and pro-Moscow forces claiming the capture of a key town on the way to Kyiv-controlled territory.

Read more news on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis here.

Russian troops were approaching the strategic city of Severodonetsk on Friday in a relentless offensive to control Ukraine‘s eastern Donbas region, as the war triggered a historic schism between the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and its Russian patriarchate.

Pro-Russian separatists said they had captured the town of Lyman between Severodonetsk and Kramatorsk, on the road leading to the key cities still under Kyiv’s control. - AFP

Moscow-backed separatists pounded eastern Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region on Friday, claiming the capture of a railway hub as concerns grew that besieged cities in the region would undergo the same horrors experienced by the people of Mariupol in the weeks leading up to the port’s capture.