Ukraine needs more artillery to maintain fight in key Donbas city, commander says

The battle amid the ruins of Ukraine's Sievierodonetsk, a small industrial city, has become one of the war's bloodiest, with Russia concentrating its invasion force there.

Ukrainian troops claimed on Thursday to have pushed forward in intense street fighting in the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk, but said their only hope to turn the tide was more artillery to offset Russia’s massive firepower.

In the south, Ukraine’s defence ministry said it had captured new ground in a counter-attack in Kherson province, aiming at the biggest swathe of territory Russia has seized since its invasion in February.

The battle amid the ruins of Sievierodonetsk, a small industrial city, has become one of the war’s bloodiest, with Russia concentrating its invasion force there. Both sides claim to have inflicted massive casualties.

Sievierodonetsk and its twin city Lysychansk on the opposite bank of the Siverskyi Donets river are the last Ukrainian-held parts of Luhansk province, which Moscow aims to seize as one of its principal war objectives.

In a rare update from Sievierodonetsk, the commander of Ukraine’s Svoboda National Guard Battalion, Petro Kusyk, said Ukrainians were drawing the Russians into street fighting to neutralize Russia’s artillery advantage.

“Yesterday was successful for us – we launched a counteroffensive and in some areas we managed to push them back one or two blocks. In others they pushed us back, but just by a building or two,” he said in a televised interview.

“Yesterday the occupiers suffered serious losses – if every day were like yesterday, this would all be over soon.”

But he said his forces were suffering from a “catastrophic” lack of counter-battery artillery to fire back at Russia’s guns.