Russia ratchets up battle for control of eastern Ukraine

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Russia ratchets up battle for control of eastern Ukraine
By Adam Schreck, The Associated Press
Apr 19, 09:51 AM
Russian military vehicles move on a highway in an area controlled by Russian-backed separatist forces near Mariupol, Ukraine, Monday, April 18, 2022. Mariupol, a strategic port on the Sea of Azov, has been besieged by Russian troops and forces from self-proclaimed separatist areas in eastern Ukraine for more than six weeks. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia ratcheted up its battle for control of Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland on Tuesday, intensifying assaults on cities and towns along a front hundreds of miles long in what officials on both sides described as a new phase of the war.

After a Russian push to overrun the capital failed, the Kremlin declared that its main goal was the capture of the eastern Donbas region, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for eight years.

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