Russia Ukraine War News Live Updates: Moscow shells greater than 40 cities in Donbas push; Zelenskyy rejects giving up territory to finish preventing

Russian forces on Wednesday pounded Ukrainian-held twin cities within the Donbas area that’s now the main target of the three-month struggle, threatening to close off the final principal escape route for civilians trapped within the path of their advance.

Local resident Anatolii Virko performs a piano outdoors a home doubtless broken after a Russian bombing in Velyka Kostromka village, Ukraine, May 19, 2022. (AP)

After failing to grab Ukraine’s capital Kyiv or its second metropolis Kharkiv, Russia is attempting to take full management of the Donbas, comprised of two jap provinces Moscow claims on behalf of separatists.

Russia has poured hundreds of troops into the area, attacking from three sides in an try to encircle Ukrainian forces holding out within the metropolis of Sievierodonetsk and its twin Lysychansk. Their fall would go away the entire of Luhansk province beneath Russian management, a key Kremlin struggle purpose.

Police in Lysychansk are amassing our bodies of individuals killed with the intention to bury them in mass graves, Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai stated. Some 150 folks have been buried in a mass grave in a single Lysychansk district, he added.

Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, stated Russia’s “army is having some tactical success which is threatening to become an operational success in the direction of Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk.”

Sievierodonetsk and Bakhmut, a city to the southeast, had been in peril of being encircled, Arestovych stated. “(It’s) possible that settlements will be abandoned, it’s possible we will have heavy losses.”

Families of individuals buried in mass graves will be capable to perform a reburial after the struggle, and police are issuing paperwork enabling Ukrainians to safe demise certificates for family members, Gaidai stated.

The principal street out of Sievierodonetsk was being shelled, however humanitarian help was nonetheless getting in, Gaidai stated in an earlier assertion. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated Russian troops “heavily outnumber us” in some elements of the east.

As Moscow seeks to solidify its grip on the territory it has seized, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree simplifying the method for residents of newly captured districts to amass Russian citizenship and passports.