The bombardment preceded a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, during which Putin announced that Russia planned to send the Iskander-M missile system to Belarus.

Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk province, said on Facebook that separatist fighters backed by Russia and Moscow were trying to block Lysychansk from the south. The town lies just west of Sievierodonetsk, which has endured weeks of shelling and house-to-house fighting.

Capturing Lysychansk would give Russian forces control of all major settlements in the province, which would be an important step in Russia’s goal of capturing the entire Donbass region. The Russians and separatists also control about half of Donetsk, the second province of Donbass.

Russian news agency Interfax quoted a spokesman for the separatist forces, Andrei Marochko, as saying that Russian troops and separatist fighters had entered Lysychansk and fighting was taking place in the heart of the city. There was no immediate comment on the Ukrainian side’s claim.

Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk were the focal point of a Russian offensive aimed at capturing all of Donbass and destroying the Ukrainian army defending it – the most capable and battle-hardened segment of the country’s armed forces.

Russian bombardment reduced most of Sievierodonetsk to rubble and reduced its population from 100,000 to 10,000. Some Ukrainian troops were entrenched in the huge Azot chemical plant on the outskirts of the city. A separatist representative, Ivan Filiponenko, said the forces evacuated 800 civilians from the factory overnight, Interfax reported.

After Haidai said Friday that Ukrainian forces had started retreat from Sievierodonetsk, military analyst Oleg Zhdanov said some of the troops were heading towards Lysychansk. But the Russian measures to cut off Lysychansk will give little respite to these retreating troops.

About 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) to the west, four Russian cruise missiles fired from the Black Sea hit a “military object” in Yaroviv, Lviv regional governor Maksym Kozytskyy said. He did not give further details on the target, but Yaroviv has a major military base used to train fighters, including foreigners who have volunteered to fight for Ukraine.

Russian missiles hit the Yaroviv base in March, killing 35 people. The Lviv area, although far from the front lines, came under fire at various times during the war as the Russian military worked to destroy fuel storage sites.

About 30 Russian missiles were fired Saturday morning at the Zhytomyr region in central Ukraine, killing a Ukrainian soldier, regional governor Vitaliy Buchenko said.

In the northwest, two missiles hit a petrol station and car repair center in Sarny, killing three people and injuring four, Rivne regional governor Vitaliy Koval said. He posted a photo of the destruction. Sarny is located about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the border with Belarus.

In southern Ukraine, along the Black Sea coast, nine missiles fired from Crimea hit the port city of Mykolaiv, the Ukrainian military said.

In the north, about 20 missiles were fired from Belarus towards the Chernihiv region, the Ukrainian army said.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said Russian bombers’ use of Belarusian airspace for the first time for Saturday’s attack was ‘directly linked to the Kremlin’s attempts to drag Belarus into war’ .

Belarus hosts Russian military units and was used as a staging ground before Russia invaded Ukraine, but its own troops did not cross the border.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address that as a war expected to last five days in Moscow entered its fifth month, Russia “felt compelled to put on such a missile show”.

He said the war was at a difficult stage, “when we know the enemy will not succeed, when we understand that we can defend our country, but we don’t know how long it will take, how many more attacks , losses and there will be efforts before we can see that victory is already on our horizon.

During his meeting in St. Petersburg with Lukashenko, Putin told him that the Iskander-M missile systems would arrive in the coming months. He noted that they can fire ballistic or cruise missiles and carry nuclear as well as conventional warheads. Russia launched several Iskander missiles at Ukraine during the war.

After a failed attempt to seize the Ukrainian capital Kyiv at the start of the invasion that began on February 24, Russian forces have focused on Donbass, where Ukrainian forces have been fighting Moscow-backed separatists since 2014 .

A senior US defense official, speaking in Washington on condition of anonymity, on Friday called the Ukrainians’ withdrawal from Sievierodonetsk a “tactical demotion” to shore up forces in positions where they can better defend themselves. The move will bolster Ukraine’s efforts to keep Russian forces pinned down in a small area, the official said.

After repeating Ukrainian demands to its Western allies For heavier weapons to counter Russia’s firepower advantage, four US medium-range rocket launchers arrived this week, with four more on the way.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense released a video on Saturday showing the first use of the High mobility artillery rocket systems, or HIMARS, in Ukraine. The video gave no location or indication of the targets. Rockets can travel about 45 miles (70 kilometers).

The top US defense official said on Friday that more Ukrainian forces were training outside Ukraine to use HIMARS and were expected to return to their country with the weapons by mid-July. 18 American coastal and river patrol boats will also be sent.

The official said there was no evidence that Russia intercepted the constant flow of weapons to Ukraine from the United States and other countries. Russia has repeatedly threatened to hit, or even claimed to have hit, such shipments.

Follow AP’s coverage of the Russian-Ukrainian War at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine