• Ukrainian forces will withdraw from Severodonetsk, a senior Ukrainian official says.
• The strategically important industrial hub has been the scene of weeks of street battles.
• Russia has focused its offensive in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region after being driven out of Kyiv.

Ukrainian forces will withdraw from Severodonetsk after weeks of fierce fighting over the key city, a major boost to Russia’s goal of seizing a swath of eastern Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian official said Friday that

The announcement came shortly after the European Union granted Ukraine candidate status as a show of support for the former Soviet republic, though the road to membership remains long.

Russia has focused its offensive in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region after being driven out of the capital Kyiv and other areas following the February invasion. Despite encountering fierce resistance and suffering heavy losses, its forces have gradually advanced.

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“Despite the growing loss of personnel and equipment, Russians continue to outnumber the (Ukrainian) defence forces in artillery” in certain areas, Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, Ukraine’s defence ministry spokesman, told reporters on Friday.

“This allows them to gain some tactical success,” Motuzyanyk added.

The strategically important industrial hub of Severodonetsk has been the scene of weeks of street battles as the outgunned Ukrainians put up a stubborn defence.

But Sergiy Gaiday, the governor of the Lugansk region which includes Severodonetsk, said that Ukrainian military forces in the city had received an order to withdraw.

“Remaining in positions that have been relentlessly shelled for months just doesn’t make sense,” he said on Telegram, adding that 90 percent of the city had been damaged.

The Ukrainians had already been pushed back from much of the city, leaving them in control of only industrial areas.

“The Ukrainian army is still in Severodonetsk, it will take them some time to retire,” head of the city’s military administration Roman Vlasenko told Radio Svoboda — the Prague-based Russian-language wing of the US-funded Radio Free Europe.

Capturing Severodonetsk and its twin city of Lysychansk would give the Russians control of Lugansk, and allow them to push further into the wider Donbas.

Gaiday said the Russians were now advancing on Lysychansk, which has been facing increasingly heavy Russian bombardment.

The situation for those that remain in the city is bleak.

Liliya Nesterenko said her house had no gas, water or electricity and she and her mother were cooking on a campfire. She was cycling along the street, and had come out to feed a friend’s pets.

But the 39-year-old was upbeat about the city’s defences: “I believe in our Ukrainian army, they should (be able to) cope.”

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Andrei Marochko, a spokesman for the Moscow-backed army of Lugansk said Friday on Telegram that all the villages in the neighbouring areas of Zolote and Hirske were now under the control of Russian or pro-Russian forces.

A man in military uniform can be seen replacing the Ukrainian flag with the Zolote coat of arms with a red hammer-and-sickle flag in a video on Marochko’s Telegram channel.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday that up to 2,000 people were “completely blocked” near Zolote and Hirske, and that Russia controlled roughly half of Zolote.