Russian troops have bombed a major railway junction and supply line for Ukrainian troops in the east of the country, according to videos released Thursday and Friday. The video shows railway trucks burning in the town of Lyman, a few miles east of Slovyansk, in the Donetsk region. The Russians were trying to “advance from the north of the region, the neighboring area of Kharkiv – in the direction of Lyman, and do everything possible to find a direct route to Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, achieving their strategies “targets in the Donetsk region,” Pavlo said. Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional military administration. Kyrylenko insisted that “the enemy can not leak. The city of Lyman is under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.” However, he said the Russians were using artillery and air raids to destroy settlements and prevent Ukrainian defenders from fortifying their positions. With the exception of the city of Mariupol, nearly 1.7 million people lived in government-controlled areas of Donetsk on the eve of the war, Kirilenko added. There are now about 370,000 civilians in the area. Background: Lyman has been bombed as Russian troops continue their offensive in eastern Ukraine. On Friday, the General Staff of the Armed Forces said that Russian forces were also trying to carry out air strikes in eastern Ukraine. The Izium region, located in the Kharkiv region, has become a stopping point for Russian forces as they try to advance through neighboring Donetsk and Luhansk. No offensive operations have been carried out in the area in recent hours, the Ukrainian military has said. “The main effort was focused on identifying, locating defense positions of Ukrainian Defense Forces units and striking them with artillery fire,” the General Staff said. Further southeast, “to prevent the redeployment of our troops, the enemy is bombarding the positions with artillery, mortars and multiple rocket launchers along the entire line of contact,” he added. CNN’s Julia Kesayeva contributed to the report in this post.
