The front is only a few kilometers away.
Multiple rocket launchers on Sloviansk on Sunday caused "many deaths and injuries", announced the mayor of this city in eastern Ukraine under pressure from the Russian army.
Fifteen fires are raging according to him, after these strikes "the most important for a long time", specifies Vadim Liakh.
According to Ukrainian media, one of the city's markets was notably on fire following these strikes.
Tetiana Ignatchenko, a spokeswoman for the Donetsk region to which Sloviansk belongs, told Ukrainian media Suspilne that the strikes left "six dead and fifteen injured" and reiterated the authorities' appeal to residents to leave the town. region, as the front line approaches the city, a provisional assessment confirmed by the mayor.
Read alsoWhy the Ukrainians want to defend Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, targets of Moscow at all costs
Further south, the city of Kramatorsk, the administrative center of Ukrainian-controlled Donbass, was hit for the second consecutive day by Smertch rockets, according to the city's mayor Oleksandr Goncharenko.
These strikes, which hit a residential area and an unoccupied hotel, caused no casualties, he said.
Cities that could resist for a long time
Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, two cities with high symbolic value, are directly under threat from Russian forces, especially if the capture of Lyssytchansk in the northeast claimed by Russia on Sunday were to be confirmed by kyiv, which affirms that fighting is taking place there. continue.
Putin's men may have much more stamina and artillery, but the twin cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk will be even more complicated to wrest from the Ukrainians.
Sievierodonetsk was easy to isolate: three bridges connected it to the rest of the country located west of the Donets River.
They have been destroyed.
“Sloviansk is glued to Kramatorsk.
It will be difficult to capture one without the other, which represents a very long urban line, underlines Michel Goya.
It will be necessary to surround them so that they are not supplied, this means that the Russians will be vulnerable to attacks coming from the West.
It is a much more complex mission.
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