Russia launches ‘Battle of Donbas’ all-out assault on east Ukraine

Russia launched its long-awaited all-out assault on east Ukraine on Tuesday, seizing its first town after unleashing thousands of troops in what Ukraine has described as the Battle of the Donbas, a campaign to take two provinces.

Ukrainian officials insisted their troops would withstand the new assault, which they said began overnight with massive Russian artillery and rocket barrages and attempts to advance across almost the entire stretch of the eastern front. In the first big reported success of Russia’s new assault, Ukraine said the Russians had seized Kreminna, a frontline town of 18,000 people in Luhansk, one of the two Donbas provinces. Russian forces were attacking “on all sides”, authorities were trying to evacuate civilians and it was impossible to tally the civilian dead, Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said.

Moscow gave few details about its new campaign, but Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed that “another stage of this operation is beginning”. Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia was “methodically” carrying out its plan to “liberate” Donetsk and Luhansk, provinces which Moscow demands Kyiv cede fully to Russian-backed separatists. In the ruins of Mariupol, a southeastern port destroyed while withstanding nearly eight weeks of siege, Russia gave the last Ukrainian defenders holed up in a giant steel works an ultimatum to surrender by noon (0900 GMT) or die. 
KYIV/KHARKIV, April 
19 (Reuters)