KYIV/SLOVIANSK, Ukraine—Ukrainian troops claimed on Thursday to have pushed forward in intense street fighting in the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk, but said their only hope to turn the tide was more artillery to offset Russia’s massive firepower.
In the south, Ukraine’s defence ministry said it had captured new ground in a counter-attack in Kherson Province.
The battle amid the ruins of Sievierodonetsk, a small industrial city, has become one of the war’s bloodiest, with Russia concentrating its invasion force there.
Sievierodonetsk and its twin city Lysychansk on the opposite bank of the Siverskyi Donets river are the last Ukrainian-held parts of Luhansk Province, which Moscow aims to seize as one of its principal war objectives….