'The Russians are determined': Ukrainian soldiers defending Donbas city try to keep up morale under fire
In most of Ukraine, Russia's war effort is slowing down, its forces losing ground after they pulled out of the north and the capital, Kyiv.
But in Lysychansk, 700 kilometres east of the capital, that is all a world away. It is here that Russia is pushing its renewed offensive in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region the hardest, concentrating its forces and slowly but surely moving forward.
Almost three months into the war, only a small sliver of Luhansk oblast, one of two main administrative regions that make up Donbas, remains under Ukrainian control. Fighting here is constant, with artillery and mortar shelling coming without end. Colossal plumes of thick black smoke rose from the Lysychansk oil refinery after it was struck repeatedly by Russian howitzers over the past week.
The mood among the Ukrainian fighters defending the city varies. One commander, who identified himself by his call sign, Spartak, was in high spirits. He leads a battalion of 350 men defending the city and Severodonetsk, which sits across the Seversky Donets River from Lysychansk. "The situation is tough," Spartak said. "Our task is to defend Luhansk, or what's left of it, but the Russians are determined."