Muristek
Lviv/Kyiv, April 19
Russia launched its long-awaited all-out assault on east Ukraine on Tuesday, unleashing thousands of troops in what Ukraine described as the Battle of the Donbas, a campaign to seize two provinces and salvage a battlefield victory.
Russian forces 'seize' Kreminna
Russian forces have seized the city of Kreminna in eastern Ukraine and Ukrainian troops have withdrawn from the city, the regional governor said on Tuesday.
Ukrainian officials insisted their troops would withstand the new assault, which they said began overnight with massive Russian artillery and rocket barrages and attempts to advance across almost the entire stretch of the eastern front.
In the first reported success of Russia's new assault, Ukraine said the Russians had seized Kreminna, a frontline town of 18,000 persons in Luhansk, one of the two Donbas provinces. "Kreminna is under the control of the 'Orcs'. They have entered the city," the province's Ukrainian governor, Sergiy Gaidai, told a briefing, invoking the goblin-like creatures who appear in JRR Tolkein's fantasy books.
Russian forces are attacking "on all sides", authorities are trying to evacuate civilians and it is impossible to tally the civilian dead, Gaidai said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told Ukrainians said they would withstand the new advance. — Reuters