The brutal battle for the Donbas erupted today with the Russian military blitzing 1,260 targets inside Ukraine.
They launched a massive offensive across a 300-mile front in their attempts to take the eastern province.
A couple of towns were lost but tonight it appeared the front was remaining firm and defiant.
Regional governor Serhiy Haidai said: “Street fights are taking place.”
Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov said: “I believe that we will defend the city. We will not give the Russian aggressor a chance to take it.”
He said the Russians were advancing from the north, saying: “As far as I know, there is fierce fighting and the Ukrainian forces are rebuffing the enemy well.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky warned a “very large part of the entire Russian army is now focused on this offensive” in the Donbas.
He added: “No matter how many Russian soldiers are driven there, we will fight, we will defend ourselves. We will do it every day.”
There are now an estimated 70,000 Russian troops massed on the Donbas border.
As the battle intensified concerns grew for two Brits, Shaun Pinner, 48, and Aiden Aslin, 28, who were captured while fighting for Ukraine and paraded on Russian TV. They have been taunted by claims they could face the death penalty.
Updating MPs, Boris Johnson pledged to “intensify our support for President Zelensky”. Predicting the war will become an artillery conflict, he said it was at a very “perilous” stage.
Vowing to send more heavy weapons, he warned: “It is vital now we don’t allow Putin to gain momentum in the Donbas, as he well could.”
Earlier, Mr Johnson spoke with US President Joe Biden, French Premier Emmanuel Macron, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and the leaders of the EU, Canada, Japan, Germany, Italy, Poland and Romania.
During the video call, he spoke of the “critical need” for further military support for Ukraine. A Downing Street spokesman said: “The leaders agreed to work together to find a long-term security solution so that Ukraine could never be attacked in this way again.
“They discussed the need to increase pressure with more sanctions, as well as further diplomatic isolation. The allies agreed to work closely together in the weeks and months to come.”
President Biden said the US will send more artillery to Ukraine. The Prime Minister’s spokesman said the PM told the Cabinet that President Vladimir Putin was “angered by defeats but determined to claim some sort of victory regardless of the human cost”.
A senior national security official told the Cabinet the next phase of the war was likely to be “an attritional conflict that could last several months”.
The spokesman added Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin told ministers that allies were “expanding military aid to Ukraine and the UK continued to play a leading role”. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace is expected to update the Commons on sending fresh supplies this week.
Former UK Joint Forces Command chief General Sir Richard Barrons told the Commons Defence Select Committee Putin’s “goals have changed because of the fundamental lack of success in the campaign to date”.
He told MPs: “It has become clear he can’t remove, currently, the regime in Kyiv, he’s a very long way away from dismantling the military and he’s still embarked on trying to seize the Donbas.” Ukraine needs heavy artillery from allies, he said. Raising the spectre of a new Cold War, Gen Sir Richard warned: “We are now clearly looking at a confrontation for the rest of this century.”
Lieutenant General Lance Landrum, deputy chairman of the military committee at NATO headquarters in Brussels, said allies were sending heavier hardware.
“What we’ve seen is a huge fighting spirit from the Ukrainian forces,” he said at the Invictus Games.
Russia will not use nuclear arms, its Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted in a TV interview. “Conventional weapons only,” he said.
Lavrov said the war is entering a new phase, echoing comments from Ukraine.
He said: “The operation in the east is aimed, as was announced from the very beginning, to fully liberate the Donetsk and Luhansk republics. This operation will continue.”
Ukraine said the new Russian assault had led to the capture of Kreminna, an administrative centre of 18,000 people in Luhansk.
Meanwile, an unnamed European official said Mariupol could fall within days.
It came as about 120 civilians living beside steel works in the port city have left via humanitarian corridors, reports quoting Russian state TV said. Four people were killed and 14 injured by Russian strikes in Kharkiv, regional prosecutors said.
Russian businessman Oleg Tinkov condemned what he called Moscow’s “crazy war”, saying 90% of his countrymen did not support it.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a four-day pause in fighting to allow for safe passage of civilians and humanitarian aid.
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny today claimed Russian soldiers had killed a 60-year-old man in Bucha because he shared his last name.
