Russian troops are engaged in heavy street fighting inside the city of Sievierodonetsk, a major railway hub.

 via New York Times

Russia edged closer on Saturday to occupying the entirety of Luhansk, a key province in eastern Ukraine, after its forces entered a critical eastern city still under partial Ukrainian control.

Aided in part by thermobaric warheads, one of the most fearsome conventional weapons available to contemporary armies, the Russian advance in eastern Ukraine highlighted the dividend that Russia has gained by seizing a port on the Black Sea and halting its attempts to capture the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv.

That has allowed the Russian Army to concentrate its forces in a small pocket of eastern Ukraine, where Russian supply lines are less vulnerable; where Russian forces have shored up their control of some newly captured territory; and where Ukrainian officials say their army is now considerably outnumbered and outgunned.

The latest indicator of this dividend came on Saturday, when two senior Ukrainian officials said that Ukrainian and Russian forces were locked in heavy street fighting inside the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk, where Russian soldiers had advanced to within a few blocks of the administrative headquarters. By Saturday morning, the Russians had captured a bus station and a hotel in the city’s northeast and damaged 14 high-rise buildings during at least three rounds of shelling overnight, the head of Luhansk Province’s military administration, Serhiy Haidai, said.

We don't seem to be getting many of the videos we saw at the beginning of this war anymore.

I can understand why.

Fighting in a major city?  Brutal work.  I'm sure the Russians are doing a Berlin 2.0 in this fight and blasting buildings, bouncing rubble...doing it again and then finally sending in their infantry.

If you remember the story from about a week ago, the Ukrainian forces in this region feel abandoned.

Even worse?

I heard a report that a Ukrainian govt official said that its too late to evacuate civilians from the city.  Side note.  I have a personal issue with that.  This fighting has been going on for the better part of a week.  To think that the govt wouldn't force evacuations of the civilian populace seems like a huge mistake to me.

I haven't looked at a map on this issue but from reports it seems like the East will soon be in Russian hands.  If that is the end of their ambitions (and they don't want to fight over Odessa like I've predicted was the end goal) then this could soon be over.

If they do want Odessa then we can expect a quick consolidation of the lines with a push toward that seaport.

We could soon see a naval battle.