Fighting intensifies around Sievierodonetsk in Ukraine’s east.

A battle raging for weeks now through the pine forests and gently rolling hills around the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk has intensified in the past day, Ukrainian civilian and military officials said on Friday.

Russian artillery fire into the city and nearby areas had killed 12 civilians and damaged more than 60 buildings over the past day, said the governor of Luhansk Province, where the city is located.

The Ukrainian military said in its regularly published morning assessment of the war on Friday that its forces had repelled a Russian attempt to storm defensive positions near Sievierodonetsk.

Throughout the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, which Russia has vowed to capture after abandoning more ambitious goals of toppling the central government, Russian troops carried out 13 other attacks on Ukrainian positions, the Ukrainian military said. Read more

@nytimes