Four civilians are killed as Russian forces pound a key city in eastern Ukraine.

Russia’s military pounded civilian areas, including high-rise buildings, in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk overnight and into Tuesday, killing four civilians, as the forces tried to complete a stranglehold on the riverside city, which is critical for control of the wider Donbas region.

Sievierodonetsk and its neighbor across the Seversky Donets River, Lysychansk, are the last main urban holdouts in Luhansk Province in the eastern Donbas region, which has been the focus of Moscow’s military campaign since President Vladimir Putin’s forces failed to capture either Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, or its second largest city, Kharkiv.

Serhiy Haidai, the head of the Luhansk regional administration, said on Telegram that Russia had deployed as many as 12,500 military personnel to the battle in 25 battalion tactical groups and that Sievierodonetsk was being “destroyed by aircraft and all available weapons.” Read more

@nytimes