SIEVIERODONETSK, Ukraine—Ukraine on Friday said it recaptured a large chunk of territory in fierce fighting for Sievierodonetsk and foiled an attempt by Russian troops to advance from the devastated eastern industrial city on the 100th day of Moscow’s invasion.
Ukraine’s defense minister said his soldiers were training in Europe to operate advanced missile systems pledged this week by the United States and Britain, which Kyiv hopes will help swing the battle in its favor.
Rejecting Western criticism that the war is to blame for rising global food prices hurting poor countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin denied Moscow was preventing Ukrainian ports from exporting cereals.
Reuters reached Sievierodonetsk on Thursday and was able to verify that Ukrainians still held part of the city. Troops drove toward a plume of black smoke at high speed over roads littered with wrecked armored vehicles.
At another location in the city, Ukrainian troops, including foreign volunteers, unloaded weapons from a truck.
On Friday, the Ukrainian head of the Luhansk region Serhiy Gaidai told national television that Ukrainian troops had recaptured around 20 percent of the territory they had lost to Russian forces in Sievierodonetsk.
Reuters could not independently verify Gaidai’s claim.
Two Reuters journalists were injured and a driver killed after their vehicle came under fire as they tried to reach Sievierodonetsk from an area controlled by Russian-backed separatists.
Gaidai said the Russians were shelling Ukrainian positions for hours and then advancing, only to be repulsed by defenders who had not been hurt, before repeating the pattern.
“This is how they are moving forward, step by step, because with artillery, aircraft, mortars, they are simply destroying everything,” he said.
“But as soon as we have enough Western long-range weapons, we will push their artillery away from our positions. And then, believe me, the Russian infantry, they will just run.”
Russian soldiers attempted to advance toward Lysychansk, across the Siverskyi Donetsk River from Sievierodonetsk, but were forced to retreat, Ukraine’s military general staff said.
In neighboring Donetsk province, also a target of Moscow’s eastern offensive, Russian troops were just 15 km (9 miles) outside the city of Sloviansk, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told Reuters.
Donetsk will not fall quickly, but needs more weapons to keep the attackers at bay, Kyrylenko said.
Washington said this week it expected Ukrainians would need three weeks of training to use the rockets, whose range of up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) could help negate Russia’s artillery fire-power advantage.
U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters a negotiated settlement in Ukraine would be needed at some point, but in the meantime, the United States would help Ukrainians defend themselves.
Slow but Steady Progress
Moscow says the Western weapons will pour “fuel on the fire,” but will not change the course of what it calls a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and rid it of dangerous nationalists.Despite being driven from the north of Ukraine in March after a failed assault on the capital, Russia still controls around a fifth of the country, about half seized in 2014 and half captured since launching its invasion on Feb. 24.
For both sides, the massive Russian assault in the east in recent weeks has been one of the deadliest phases of the war, with Ukraine saying it is losing 60–100 soldiers every day.
Moscow has made slow but steady progress, squeezing Ukrainian forces inside a pocket in the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, but so far failing to encircle them.
Kyiv, meanwhile, hopes the Russian advance will drain Moscow’s forces enough for Ukraine to recapture territory in months to come.
