War In Sievierodonetsk Called To Decide Donbas' Fate, President Zelensky: This Is A Very Brutal Battle

JAKARTA - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the fierce war in Sievierodonetsk would determine the fate of the Donbas region, with the battle there he rated as one of the most difficult and brutal.

President Zelensky's statement could not be separated from Russia's efforts to control eastern Ukraine by launching a centralized attack. Having failed to take control of the capital Kyiv, the Kremlin says it is now trying to completely 'liberate' the breakaway Donbas from Ukraine.

The Donbas is where Russia-backed separatists broke from the control of the Ukrainian government in 2014. About a third of the Donbas were held by separatists before the February 24 invasion.

"This is a very brutal, very difficult battle, perhaps one of the most difficult throughout this war," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video statement.

"Sievierodonetsk remains the epicenter of the meeting in the Donbas. For the most part, that is where the fate of our Donbas is decided now," he added.

Ukrainian fighters in Sievierodonetsk withdrew to the outskirts of the city on Wednesday, but have vowed to fight there as long as possible.

Meanwhile, artillery shelling has turned the city in Ukraine's Lugansk Province into a bombed desert. The governor of the Lugansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, said the city center was being demolished.

"Our fighters are holding out in the industrial zone of Sievierodonetsk. But fighting is taking place not only in the industrial zone, but also in the city of Sievierodonetsk," Gaidai told Ukrainian television late Wednesday.

Ukrainian forces still control all of Sievierodonetsk's twin sister city Lysychansk on the west bank of the Donets Siverskyi River, but Russian troops demolished residential buildings there, Gaidai said.

Gaidai said Russia now controls more than 98 percent of Lugansk. Reuters was unable to independently verify the situation on the ground in the two cities.

Separately, Kyiv's ambassador to the United States told CNN Ukrainian troops were outnumbered in Lugansk and Donetsk, which collectively make up the Donbas, a largely Russian-speaking region.

But "as we have seen in the battle for Kyiv, we can lose something temporarily. Of course, we try to minimize that because we know what (could) happen (when) Russia takes the territory, but we will get it back," he said. Ambassador Oksana Markarova.

United Nations figures show more than 7 million people have crossed the border from Ukraine since Russia invaded on February 24.