Ukraine troops regroup to defend cities in Donetsk

Russia has started bombarding Sloviansk in East Ukraine

Ukraine's military says it is regrouping to defend the Donetsk region from Russian attacks. Residents are racing to escape cities now on the frontline. Russia is increasing pressure on the city of Slovyansk, where missiles have killed several people.

The UK estimates that Russian forces are within 16 kilometers of the town of Sloviansk in Donetsk, which appears to be Russia's next major target after seizing Lysychansk.

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The UK's Ministry of Defense said in its Wednesday intelligence update that "there is a realistic possibility that the battle for Sloviansk will be the next key contest in the struggle for the Donbas." 

It said that Russian forces were likely continuing to consolidate their control over the Luhansk oblast and the recently overrun Lysychansk, but that forces from Russia's eastern, western, central and southern forces all now appeared to be converging on the town of Sloviansk in the neighboring Donetsk oblast. The Eastern and Western Groups of Forces "are likely now around 16 km (roughly 10 miles) from the town," it said.

The mayor of Sloviansk on Tuesday told citizens to take shelter, saying the city faced "massive shelling." Meanwhile, Ukraine's governor for the contested Donetsk region said his "main advice" to noncombatant civilians was to evacuate. 

"The enemy is shelling chaotically, the attacks are aimed at destroying the local population," Pavlo Kyrylenko said. "So, once again, the main advice is to evacuate."

Germany: Left Party lawmaker says sanctions not working

A Left Party lawmaker in Germany has called for an end to Russian sanctions against the gas supply and to start talks on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

"The government must ensure that the energy prices are kept in check by increasing supply, including from Russia, remain limited," the party's economic expert, Klaus Ernst, is quoted as saying in Wednesday's edition of the newspaper Rheinische Post.

"Our citizens and our economy are the suffering the consequences of a completely misguided sanctions policy," he said, while disrupting the gas supply could also "irreparably damage the industrial backbone" of Germany.

"The German government must do everything it can now to secure energy supplies."

"If necessary, also about putting Nord Stream 2 into operation for a limited period of time, if the gas supply cannot be can be guaranteed in any other way."

Germany's Left Party is effectively the successor to the former East German communist SED and tends to maintain better ties to Russia than any other major political groupings in the country.

The party has been struggling in state elections this year following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. It failed to secure parliamentary representation in the most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia entirely in May, securing just 2.1% of the vote, having claimed 4.9% last time around in 2017.