Russia and Ukraine pounded each other’s forces in heavy fighting in the eastern region of Donetsk on Tuesday as Kyiv’s allies met in Paris to provide urgent aid to help Ukrainians survive freezing winter temperatures.
Moscow is battling to take full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, two of four territories the Kremlin claims to have annexed in votes rejected by most countries as illegal.
Moscow is also attacking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with waves of missile and drone strikes, at times cutting off electricity for millions of civilians enduring Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two.
“A little more than 50% of the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic has been liberated,” Denis Pushilin, Russian-installed administrator of the portion controlled by Moscow, told Russian state-owned news agency RIA.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the report.
Fierce fighting in the region in recent weeks has left unclear which parts of Donetsk are under Russian and Ukrainian control.
Three civilians were killed in the Donetsk region over past 24 hours, regional Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on his Telegram channel, while in the southern Kherson region, regional governor Yaroslav Yanushevych reported three people were killed and 15 wounded in Russian artillery attacks in the past day.
Russian troops shelled the part of the Kherson region under Ukrainian control 57 times, he said.
Russia’s sustained shelling of the frontline in Donetsk has completely destroyed the city of Bakhmut and heavily damaged the city of Avdiivka, which lies in the region’s centre, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday.
On Monday, the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said Russia kept concentrating its efforts to advance and capture both cities.
Reuters could not independently verify the latest battlefield accounts.
Belarus, a close ally of Russia, launched a snap inspection of its troops’ combat readiness after an order from President Alexander Lukashenko, the defence ministry said on Tuesday.
It was the latest in a flurry of military actions, including a counter-terrorism exercise last week, that have raised fears Russia may mount an attack on Ukraine from Belarusian territory in coming months.
In Paris meanwhile about 70 countries and institutions will discuss what can be offered between now and March to maintain Ukraine’s water, food, energy, health and transport. A second meeting between France, Ukraine and some 500 companies will see what can be invested and done in the short to long term.
A French diplomat told reporters in a briefing ahead of the meeting the immediate priority was to ensure the electricity network did not collapse and that water pipes did not freeze.
As he arrived at the meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron said there was an agreement on removing heavy weapons from Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and that talks were under way on the modalities around this.
The Group of Seven on Monday promised to “meet Ukraine’s urgent requirements” after Zelenskiy appealed for modern tanks, artillery and long-range weapons. Zelenskiy also urged G7 leaders at a virtual meeting to support his idea of convening a special Global Peace Summit to bring peace to his country.
The summit would be focused on the implementation of Kyiv’s 10-point peace plan that insists on, among other things, Russia’s withdrawal of all its troops from Ukraine and no territorial concessions on Kyiv’s part.
U.S. President Joe Biden told Zelenskiy on Sunday that Washington’s priority was to boost Ukraine’s air defences. The United States also shipped the first batch of power equipment to Ukraine under an aid package agreed last month.
Russia is “deliberately trying to freeze Ukrainians to death as we enter winter”, a senior U.S. official said.
Moscow denies deliberately attacking civilians, but the war has displaced millions and killed thousands of non-combatants.
Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said “unliveable conditions” were likely to send another wave of Ukrainian refugees into Europe over the winter.
Sergey Kovalenko, the head of YASNO, which provides Kyiv with electricity, said on his Facebook page that power shortages in the capital were significant.
There are no peace talks under way to end the conflict, which Moscow describes as a “special military operation” against security threats posed by its neighbour. Ukraine and its Western allies call it an unprovoked, imperialist land grab.
Russia does not yet see a “constructive” approach from the United States on the Ukraine conflict, RIA news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin as saying on Monday.
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