Russian forces storming town in eastern Ukraine, bloggers say

(Reuters)

MOSCOW, Oct 20 – Russian forces are fighting street-to-street battles with Ukrainian troops in the outskirts of the eastern Ukrainian town of Selydove as Moscow’s forces push to gain control over the whole of the Donbas region, according to pro-Russian bloggers.

Russian forces, which President Vladimir Putin ordered into Ukraine in February 2022, advanced in September at their fastest rate since March 2022, according to open source data, despite Ukraine taking a part of Russia’s Kursk region.

The thrust of the Russian advance over recent months has been in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, which Putin says he wants to gain full control over.

In recent weeks, Russia has surrounded towns in Donetsk region and then slowly constricted them until Ukrainian units are forced to withdraw. According to bloggers they are doing the same to Selydove, which had a pre-war population of over 20,000.

“Street by street fighting is going on in the town,” according to Yuri Podolyaka, a prominent Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger. “The assault on Selydove has intensified.”

Other pro-Russian bloggers published video of intensive shelling of Selydove. Reuters was unable to immediately verify the footage. The Russian defence ministry did not comment and there was no immediate comment from Kyiv.

Russia controls about 80% of Donbas, which covers an area about half the size of the U.S. state of Ohio, and is pushing westwards along about 100 km of the 1200 km front around the tactically important towns of Pokrovsk and Kurakhove.