Russian forces enter mining city as Kyiv battles to defend east

Russian forces closed in on the center of an industrial city in eastern Ukraine as they pressed ahead with an offensive aimed at cementing control over the Donetsk region.

Fierce fighting continued Wednesday in the center of Toretsk, a coal mining city some 680 kilometers (420 miles) east of Kyiv, a military spokeswoman said. Russian troops took up positions in the city center as of Tuesday, according to the DeepState map service operated in cooperation with the Defense Ministry.

The advance is part of Russia’s grinding offensive in the area as Ukrainian troops struggle to hold back assaults across the front line. The capture of Toretsk would bolster the Kremlin’s aim to seize strategic Donetsk settlements such as Pokrovsk and key hubs such as Kramatorsk and Slovyansk.

Some 1,400 civilians remain in Toretsk, whose prewar population exceeded 60,000, Donetsk regional Governor Vadym Filashkin told Ukraine’s public broadcaster. Russian troops reached the outskirts of the city in late September, according to DeepState and the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made more urgent pleas to Western allies for weapons deliveries as key allies seek to shift focus toward on endgame to Russia’s two-and-a-half-year war. NATO members sense an increasing readiness for a more flexible approach by Kyiv, Bloomberg reported earlier.

The area around Toretsk has seen some of the fiercest fighting along the front, the General Staff of Ukrainian army said in recent military updates.

Ukrainian forces this month withdrew from Vuhledar, another coal-mining outpost some 100 kilometers southwest of Toretsk along the frontline. Kyiv had held the town, which has sat precariously near the front line of the conflict, since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.