DNIPRO, Ukraine — Ukrainian forces desperately tried to block a complete Russian takeover of one of the country’s two eastern provinces Tuesday, with Russian troops clawing out incremental gains even as European leaders agreed to a partial oil embargo aimed at starving Moscow’s mammoth war machine.
A combined force of Russian troops, Chechen fighters and pro-Moscow separatists slugged their way deeper into Severodonetsk, the Ukrainian government’s seat of power in the province of Luhansk, seizing a sizable portion of a city that has been almost completely destroyed in the fighting.
“We can say that a third of Severodonetsk is already under our control,” said Leonid Pasechnik, the Moscow-backed leader of the self-proclaimed breakaway Luhansk People’s Republic, in an interview with Russian state news operator Tass. He added that his forces controlled 95% of Luhansk’s territory.
