Fighting Donbass All Day Saturday, Ukraine Says Russia Failed To Seize Three Target Areas

JAKARTA - Russian troops pounded Ukraine's eastern Donbas region on Saturday but failed to capture three targeted areas, the Ukrainian military said, while Moscow said Western sanctions against Russia and arms shipments to Ukraine were hampering peace negotiations.

Russia is seeking to seize the Lyman region in Donetsk, as well as Sievierodonetsk and Popasna in Luhansk, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in a daily update.

"Unsuccessful (seizure), fighting continues," the General Staff said on April 30.

Moscow hopes to take full control of the eastern Donbas region consisting of Luhansk and Donetsk, which was already partly controlled by Russian-backed separatists before the invasion.

On Saturday, Moscow said its artillery units had struck 389 Ukrainian targets overnight. The governor of Russia's Bryansk region said air defenses had prevented a Ukrainian plane from entering the area. As a result the shelling hit parts of the oil terminal, Russian news agencies reported.

On the Ukrainian side, Lugansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai said Russia was shelling the whole area "but they couldn't penetrate our defences". He said civilians would continue to be evacuated despite the difficult situation.

However, Gaidai said two schools and 20 homes were destroyed by Russian attacks on Friday in the cities of Rubizhne and Popasna in Lugansk.

Mykola Khanatov, head of military administration in Popasna, said two buses sent to evacuate civilians from the city were fired upon by Russian forces on Friday. No word from the driver, he didn't say how many people were on the bus.

There were also reports of attacks in places outside the Donbas, including in the southern Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia areas and the northeastern city of Kharkiv, where the regional governor said residential areas had been shelled overnight.

Separately, Britain's Ministry of Defense said on Saturday Russia had been forced to merge and redeploy units that were drained and disparate from its failed advance in northeastern Ukraine.

Reuters was unable to independently verify reports of what was happening on the ground.

Russia has called its actions in Ukraine a "special operation" to disarm Ukraine and protect it from fascists. Ukraine and the West say fascist accusations are baseless and war is an act of unwarranted aggression.

The war has turned cities into rubble, killed thousands and forced 5 million Ukrainians to flee abroad. After failing to capture the capital, Russia is now focusing on eastern and southern Ukraine.