Ukraine’s Donbas ‘destroyed’ as Russian artillery and aircraft step up strikes

KYIV, Ukraine, May 20 (Reuters) – Russian forces have bombarded areas of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas from land and air, killing at least 13 civilians, Ukraine’s military said on Friday, and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the assaults had turned the region into “hell”.

As the war neared the three-month mark, the Russians were intensifying their efforts to subdue the Donbas region, the Ukrainian general staff said.

They had hit civilian infrastructure with “massive” artillery shelling, including multiple rocket-launchers, the general staff said in a statement. Russian aircraft had also struck at targets.

Russian shelling in the Luhansk area of Donbas killed 13 civilians over the past 24 hours, regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said. Twelve of those deaths were in the town of Sievierodonesk but a Russian assault there had been unsuccessful, he said.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports and Russia denies targeting civilians.

“The Donbas is completely destroyed,” President Zelenskiy said in an address on Thursday night. “It is hell there – and that is not an exaggeration.”

There were also constant strikes on the Odesa region in the south, he said.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports and Russia denies targeting civilians.

Russia’s focus on Donbas follows its failure to capture the capital Kyiv in the early stages of the invasion launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Feb. 24.

Thousands of people – many of them civilians – have been killed and whole towns and cities razed in the gravest crisis in Europe in decades.

Almost a third of the Ukraine’s people have fled their homes, including more than 6 million who have left the country in a refugee exodus, while others remain trapped in cities pulverised by Russian bombardments.

British military intelligence said on Friday that Russia is likely to further reinforce its operations in Donbas once it finally secures the southern port city of Mariupol – scene of a weeks-long siege and Russia’s most significant success in an otherwise faltering campaign.

The region, an industrial powerhouse, compromises the Donetsk and Luhansk areas, which Moscow claims on behalf of separatists.

Putin calls the invasion of Ukraine a “special military operation” to rid the country of fascists – an assertion Kyiv and its Western allies say is a baseless pretext for an unprovoked war.

The Kremlin leader was due to hold a security council meeting later on Friday.

WESTERN SUPPORT

Western powers, who have strongly condemned Russia’s actions and sought to isolate Moscow with an array of sanctions, were stepping up their support for Ukraine.

The Group of Seven rich nations on Thursday…