Russian troops have entered Kreminna, a city in the eastern Luhansk region that has been under bombardment for weeks, while Russian troops are pushing west in Donbass, a senior Ukrainian official said.
“The Russians have entered Kreminna. Street fights began,” Serhii Haidai, chief of the Luhansk regional military administration, said in a brief Facebook post early Monday.
The Russians entered the city with “a huge amount of equipment,” he said.
The offensive has begun,” he said.
The Russians have attempted to break down Ukrainian resistance in Kreminna and a number of Luhansk towns while attempting to advance towards the borders of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions – the stated goal of President Vladimir Putin’s “special military mission”.
An evacuation is now impossible, said Haidai.
“We literally planned the evacuation along forest trails so people wouldn’t come under fire. But the situation changed overnight. During the fights [has broken out] in the city, counting the civilians left there is unrealistic,” Haidai said.
Haidai said the Olympus sports facility in Kreminna was “burning down” and the fire now covered an area of 2,400 square meters.
“Rescuers are working hard because there is a forest near the center,” he said.
Haidai said that elsewhere in the region in Zolote two people were killed and four injured, while in Rubizhne seven people were recovered from the rubble of a destroyed building.
Haidai said Russian forces fired on a police building in Lysychansk on Sunday evening, wounding six police officers.
The shelling continues, he said.