Russia ratchets up battle for control of eastern Ukraine

Ukrainian sappers carry a Russian military drone backdropped by the Antonov An-225, world’s biggest cargo aircraft destroyed by the Russian troops during recent fighting, at the Antonov airport in Hostomel, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Russia has ratcheted up its battle for control of Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, 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 Kyiv failed to overrun the capital, the Kremlin declared that its main goal was the capture of the eastern Donbas region.