Russia Presses Battle for Eastern Ukraine, Claims Key City Surrounded

Service members of pro-Russian troops drive an armored vehicle along a street past a destroyed residential building during Ukraine-Russia conflict in the town of Popasna in the Luhansk Region, Ukraine May 26, 2022. The writing on the vehicle reads: "Valkyrie". (Reuters)

Russian forces engaged in an all-out battle in eastern Ukraine have captured the strategic town of Lyman and surrounded a key industrial center, Moscow has claimed.

But a Ukrainian official has denied that the city of Severodonetsk -- the focus of weeks of fierce fighting -- has been encircled, saying government troops had repelled Russian forces from its outskirts, AFP said.