Russia-Ukraine crisis live updates | Russia takes small cities, aims to widen east Ukraine battle

Here are the latest developments from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict

Russian forces stepped up their assault on the Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk on May 28 after claiming to have captured the nearby rail hub of Lyman, as Kyiv intensified its calls for longer-range weaponry from the West to help it fight back in the Donbas region.

Slow, solid Russian gains in recent days point to a subtle momentum shift in the war, now in its fourth month. The invading forces appear close to seizing all of the Luhansk region of Donbas, one of the more modest war goals the Kremlin set after abandoning its assault on Kyiv in the face of Ukrainian resistance.

Russia‘s defence ministry said on May 28 that its troops and allied separatist forces were now in full control of Lyman, the site of a railway junction west of the Siverskyi Donets River in the Donetsk region that neighbours Luhansk.

Read more news on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis here.

As Russia asserted progress in its goal of seizing the entirety of contested eastern Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin on May 29 tried to shake European resolve to punish his country with sanctions and to keep supplying weapons that have supported Ukraine’s defence.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Lyman, the second small city to fall this week, had been “completely liberated” by a joint force of Russian soldiers and Kremlin-backed separatists, who have waged war for eight years in the industrial Donbas region bordering Russia.

Ukraine’s train system has ferried arms and evacuated citizens through Lyman, a key railway hub in the east. Control of it also would give Russia‘s military another foothold in the region; it has bridges for troops and equipment to cross the Siverskiy Donets river, which has so far impeded the Russian advance into the Donbas. - AP