Despite the recent assessments that Russian forces were taking an operational pause, the head of Luhansk regional military аdministration Serhiy Haidai informed in a post on Twitter that they are trying to contain the Russian armed formations along the entire front line.
Although some analysts predicted Moscow’s troops likely would take some time to rearm and regroup after the seizure of Lysychansk, Haidai stressed that there has been no operational pause announced by the Russian enemy which is still attacking and shelling Ukrainian territory with the same intensity as before though a subsequent Ukrainian counterattack had forced Moscow to halt its offensive.
The latest intelligence update from the UK Ministry of Defence said on Sunday that Russian troops continue to strike the Sloviansk area of the Donbas – from Izium to the north and near Lysychansk to the east- and have made some small territorial advances around Popasna.
It also seems that as Russian forces advance through Donetsk Oblast, the E40, which links Donetsk and Kharkiv, is becoming an important objective.
Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, which comprise the eastern industrial region of the Donbas and parts of which were occupied by pro-Russian separatists before the conflict began, are where Russia’s main attacks appear to be focused on at the time.
Shelling of other population centers was reported during the weekend on the Telegram messaging service by the Donetsk regional Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko, who noted the Russian missile attack on Druzhkivka, a town behind the front line.
The region’s governor informed on Sunday that at least ten people have been killed, five were wounded and more than 30 are feared trapped after Russian Uragan rockets – which are fired from truck-borne systems – hit on Saturday evening a five-story apartment block in the town of Chasiv Yar, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, collapsing the building.
Kyrylenko noted that rescuers have contacted two people who are under the wreckage.
Chasiv Yar, a town of about 12,000, is about 20 km southeast of Kramatorsk, a city that is expected to be a major target of Russian forces as they move westward.
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