Sievierodonetsk battle being fought house-to-house – Ukrainian commander
By Pavel Polityuk
KYIV (Reuters) – The battle for Sievierodonetsk is being waged home to accommodate as Ukrainian fighters hope for the supply of heavy weapons that may “flip the tide,” a Ukrainian commander mentioned on Thursday.
Petro Kuzyk, commander of the Svoboda (Freedom) Nationwide Guard battalion, mentioned road combating within the small industrial metropolis in japanese Ukraine was at occasions raging beneath heavy Russian artillery barrages that endangered troops on each side.
Reuters couldn’t confirm the state of affairs on the bottom in what has change into a pivotal battle in Russia’s warfare in Ukraine. Moscow didn’t touch upon Kuzyk’s remarks and has mentioned Ukraine is struggling vital losses within the Donbas area the place Sievierodonetsk is positioned.
“We struggle for each home and each road,” Kuzyk informed nationwide tv, describing combating through which Ukrainian fighters had gone from “blind defence to small counter-offensives in some areas.
“Yesterday was profitable for us. We went on a counterattack and in some areas we managed to push them again by one or two blocks. In others we pushed them again actually by one or two homes.”
Kuzyk mentioned Ukraine had hoped Russian forces would cut back the depth of their artillery hearth when road combating started.
“After we imposed road combating on them, it labored for a while – they (their artillery) didn’t know the place they had been and the place we had been. However now they’re merely protecting each their very own troops and our models with artillery hearth,” he mentioned.
Kuzyk mentioned Ukraine’s forces had a “catastrophic” lack of methods to counter Russian artillery and wanted “severe know-how”, or heavy weapons, to strike again on the Russians.
Showing to rule out a withdrawal to the dual metropolis of Lysychansk on the other financial institution of the Siverskyi Donets river, he mentioned: “There may be an order to carry positions and we maintain them.”
Moscow says its “particular navy operation” in Ukraine is meant to disarm and “denazify” its neighbour and denies intentionally concentrating on civilians. Ukraine and its allies name the invasion an unprovoked warfare of aggression.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Modifying by Timothy Heritage)
