Ukraine braces for Russian onslaught in Donetsk as Putin’s forces face ‘determined resistance’

Ukraine was on Wednesday readying its defences in anticipation of a massive Russian assault on key cities in the eastern Donetsk province.

The country’s military was said to be fighting desperately to withstand a predicted major offensive on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

It came days after Vladimir Putin’s forces claimed control of Ukraine’s last remaining stronhghold in neighbouring Luhansk, which along with Donetsk make up the Donbas region which Russia wants to seize control from Kyiv.

The governor of Luhansk on Wednesday said heavy fighting was taking place on the edge of the region.

Serhiy Gaidai told Ukrainian TV that Russian regular army and reserve forces had been sent there in an apparent effort to cross the Siversky Donets River.

“We are holding back the enemy on the border of Luhansk region and Donetsk region,” Mr Gaidai wrote on Telegram.

Mr Gaidai earlier said Russian forces were engaged in widespread shelling as they launched their assault on Donetsk.

Russia says it wants to wrest control of the entire Donbas from Ukraine on behalf of Moscow-backed separatists in two self-proclaimed people’s republics.

Russian forces yesterday struck a market and a residential area in Sloviansk, killing at least two people and injuring seven, local officials said.

Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said Sloviansk and nearby Kramatorsk had suffered heavy shelling overnight. “There is no safe place without shelling in the Donetsk region.”

British defence chiefs on Wednesday said Mr Putin’s troops have advanced just three miles in a week on a key front due to “extremely determined Ukrainian resistance”.

His forces were estimated to be around ten miles from Sloviansk. It said there is a “realistic possibility that the battle for Sloviansk will be the next key contest in the struggle for the Donbas”.

Kyiv has said it has been trying buying time to establish fortified positions ahead of an expected Russian onslaught on Donetsk.

Speaking in his latest nightly video address, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said air alerts has been issued across nearly all of the country. The alerts followed a period of relative calm for much of the country, after Mr Putin quickly abandoned his initial plan to topple Kyiv following the launch of his invasion on February 24.

“You should not look for logic in the actions of terrorists,” Mr Zelensky said.

“The Russian army does not take any breaks. It has one task — to take people’s lives, to intimidate people — so that even a few days without an air alarm already feel like part of the terror.”