A small eastern town becomes a flash point in Russia’s campaign to seize the Donbas.

A small town in eastern Ukraine has become a flash point in the country’s struggle to defend a slowly shrinking pocket around the two strategically important cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.

Reports over the weekend that Russian forces had broken through the Ukrainian front line in Toshkivka, a town roughly 12 miles southeast of the metropolitan area of both cities, were a troubling development for Ukrainian forces defending a swath of territory roughly 30 miles wide that has come to be known as the Sievierodonetsk pocket — and where Ukraine’s leaders say the fate of the country’s Donbas region could be decided.

The pocket is about three-quarters encircled by Russian forces, leaving only a small gap — traversed by a mix of country roads and highways buffeted by artillery fire — where Ukrainian forces can shuttle supplies and troops into Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. Read more

@nytimes