Women
run for cover as rounds of shelling hit nearby, amid Russia's attack on
Ukraine, in Selydove near Pokrovsk, Ukraine, August 22, 2024.
REUTERS/Thomas Peter Purchase Licensing Rights
Russian forces storming town in eastern Ukraine, bloggers say
MOSCOW,
Oct 20 (Reuters) - Russian forces are fighting street-to-street battles
with Ukrainian troops in the outskirts of the eastern Ukrainian town of
Selydove as Moscow's forces push to gain control over the whole of the
Donbas region, according to pro-Russian bloggers.
Russian
forces, which President Vladimir Putin ordered into Ukraine in February
2022, advanced in September at their fastest rate since March 2022,
according to open source data, despite Ukraine taking a part of Russia's
Kursk region.
The
thrust of the Russian advance over recent months has been in eastern
Ukraine's Donbas region, over which Putin says he wants to gain full
control.
In
recent weeks, Russia has surrounded towns in Donetsk region and then
slowly constricted them until Ukrainian units are forced to withdraw.
According to bloggers they are doing the same to Selydove, which had a
pre-war population of over 20,000.
"Street
by street fighting is going on in the town," according to Yuri
Podolyaka, a prominent Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger.
"The assault on Selydove has intensified."
Other
pro-Russian bloggers published video of intensive shelling of Selydove.
Reuters was unable to immediately verify the footage. The Russian
defence ministry did not comment and there was no immediate comment from
Kyiv.
The
General Staff of Ukraine's military, in a late afternoon report on
Sunday, said Ukrainian forces had repelled 15 Russian attacks around
several towns and villages, including Selydove. The report said nine
battles were still raging in the area.
The popular Ukrainian war blog DeepState showed Selydove to be in Ukrainian hands.
Russia
controls about 80% of the Donbas, which covers an area about half the
size of the U.S. state of Ohio, and is pushing westwards along about 100
km of the 1200 km front around the tactically important towns of
Pokrovsk and Kurakhove.
The
2-1/2-year-old Ukraine war is entering what Russian officials say is
its most dangerous phase as Russian forces advance and the West ponders
how the war will end.
Ukraine
wants NATO membership, a step that Russia has said would be
unacceptable. The United States and key NATO powers have not publicly
endorsed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's call for an immediate
NATO-membership invitation.
Russian
forces, which have taken about a fifth of Ukraine, control 98.5% of the
Luhansk region and 60% of the Donetsk region. Together, the two regions
make up the Donbas, which is the cradle of the war.
After
a pro-Russian president was toppled in Ukraine's 2014 Maidan
Revolution, Russia annexed Crimea and pro-Russian protests broke out in
parts of the Donbas, where Moscow began supporting separatist forces.
Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Chizu Nomiyama