Battle on eastern front: Russia moves to encircle Ukraine troops

Russian forces were launching an all-out assault to encircle Ukrainian troops in twin cities straddling a river in eastern Ukraine yesterday, a battle which could determine the success or failure of Moscow's main campaign in the east.

Exactly three months after Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, authorities in its second-largest city Kharkiv re-opened the underground metro, where thousands of civilians had sheltered for months under relentless bombardment.

The reopening was evidence of Ukraine's biggest military success over the past few weeks: pushing Russian forces largely out of artillery range of Kharkiv, as they did from the capital Kyiv in March.

But the decisive battles of the war's latest phase are still raging further south, where Moscow is attempting to seize the Donbas region of two eastern provinces, Donetsk and Luhansk, and trap Ukrainian forces in a pocket on the main eastern front.

The easternmost part of the Ukrainian-held Donbas pocket, the city of Sievierodonetsk on the east bank of the Siverskiy Donets river and its twin Lysychansk on the west bank, have become the pivotal battlefield there, with Russian forces advancing from three directions to encircle them.

"The enemy has focused its efforts on carrying out an offensive in order to encircle Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk," said Serhiy Gaidai, governor of Luhansk province, where the two cities are among the last territory still held by Ukraine.

Further west in Slovyansk, air raid sirens wailed yesterday morning but streets were still busy, with a market full, children riding bikes and a street musician playing violin by a supermarket, reports Reuters.

Gaidai said Ukrainian forces had driven the Russians out of the village of Toshkivka just south of Sievierodonetsk. Russian-backed separatists said they had taken control of Svitlodarsk, south of Bakhmut.

Comments by senior Russian officials yesterday suggested plans for a drawn-out conflict ahead. Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia was deliberately advancing slowly to avoid civilian casualties.

The Donbas fighting follows Russia's biggest victory in months: the surrender last week of Ukraine's garrison in the port of Mariupol after nearly three months of siege in which Kyiv believes tens of thousands of civilians have died.

Petro Andryushchenko, an aide to Mariupol's Ukrainian mayor now operating outside the Russian-held city, said the dead were still being found in the rubble.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, in a meeting of allies, announced on Monday that some 20 countries offered new security assistance packages for Ukraine to battle Russian forces.

In Russia, foreign ministry announced that it was imposing an entry ban on 154 members of the UK parliament's House of Lords in retaliation for sanctions against Russian senators over Ukraine, reports AFP.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos yesterday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Sweden and Finland, which have applied to join Nato, will attend the transatlantic alliance's summit in Madrid next month.

Spain will speed up its parliamentary procedure to give its backing for the entry of the two nations in the alliance, he said.