Russian forces are “advancing” in several areas north of the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk after “completing the regrouping of troops,” the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff said on Sunday. .
On Saturday, the military administration of the city of Sloviansk said that hundreds of people were fleeing Sloviansk every day, with the number of evacuations almost doubling this week. A missile attack that killed three people on Tuesday “pushed citizens to leave,” the official said.
At nearby Lyman, Russia is also “advancing toward Sviatohirsk, trying to push our troops to the right bank of the Siverskyi Donets River,” the army said.
Russian troops continue to strike areas of eastern Ukraine. In the last 24 hours, eight civilians were killed and 11 wounded in the Donetsk region after Russian forces bombed 15 areas, an update by regional civilian and military administrations said on Sunday.
Russia also carried out two airstrikes in Donetsk, including one overnight in the key city of Kramatorsk, which caused “serious damage to two companies in the city,” but did not cause any casualties, said Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko of Kramatorsk.
In the areas around Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia, the Russians are “focusing on the front line of defense and the rear areas of our troops, in order to slow down our units and prevent their regrouping,” the army said.
And in Luhansk, Russian forces fired on five areas, including Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, with artillery and multiple rocket launchers. Airstrikes have also been carried out in four areas, regional officials said.
In Severodonetsk, one person was also killed and two others were injured after a building on the Azot Chemical Factory complex was damaged by Russian artillery bombing, regional officials said.
Russian units are “focusing on offensive operations to surround our troops” in Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, and to “block major logistics routes,” the army said.
Russian General Aleksandr Dvornikov “has been given the task on June 10 to completely capture Severodonetsk or completely cut off the Lysychansk-Bakhmut highway and take it under control,” said Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk regional military administration. “So a lot of forces, everything they had, all the reserves, everything is used to carry out these two tasks.”
Near Severodonetsk, in the city of Lysychansk, on Sunday a humanitarian aid center was “completely destroyed” by Russian bombing, Hayday added.
In the northeast, in the Kharkiv region, the Russians used phosphorus ammunition in the Cherkaski Tyshky area northeast of Kharkiv, according to the army.
One person was also injured after the Russian bombing of Chuguev in southeast Kharkiv, and several other areas were attacked during the night, regional officials said.
“The enemy is constantly firing on the positions of our troops near the city of Kharkiv,” the military statement said.
In Sumy, in the northeast, Russia fired artillery shells at infrastructure facilities in two areas, the army said, and the Chernihiv region in the north was also bombed.