According to Ukrainian officials, Russian forces continue to shell the city of Lysychansk and settlements to the south and west of the city as they try to close off a main road.
Serhiy Hayday, head of Luhansk’s regional military administration, said on Monday that Lysychansk was attacked from the south and badly damaged.
Villages in the area were also shelled, he said. Three settlements west and southwest of the city, close to the highway to Bakhmut, came under fire.
“The Russians do not stop destroying homes, industrial and administrative facilities. There is not an hour when the enemy artillery calms down,” Hayday said.
“They’re trying to blockade the city from the south. We defend Lysychansk.’
Further west: Russian efforts to encircle the troops defending Lysychansk continued with artillery strikes and an attempted ground attack north towards Bakhmut, which the Ukrainian Army General Staff said had been repulsed.
Slovak: The General Staff said on Monday that heavy shelling continued in many areas and that the Russians had made a small advance north of the city of Sloviansk, a key target in their offensive operation.
It said that towards Sloviansk, the Russians concentrated their efforts on capturing the village of Dolnya and advanced towards another village in the area. In this rural area near the Siverskyi Donets River, constant fighting has been going on for more than a month, but the Russians have not been able to make a breakthrough to Sloviansk.
Chernihiv: Elsewhere, cross-border shelling in the Chernihiv region has continued, according to the General Staff, and there has been an air raid on Slavhorod in the Sumy region.
Kharkiv: The Russians have used tanks, artillery and mortars to shell areas north of the city of Kharkov, but an attack on the ground near the settlement of Dementiivka – 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Kharkov – failed, the general staff said.