DONETSK: After days of constant street battles, Ukrainian troops took control on Wednesday of a large part of the rebel stronghold in Luhansk, a government spokesman announced, while battles around the rebel’s largest city of Donetsk left at least 43 people dead.

Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security Council, told reporters on Wednesday in Kiev that government forces are now controlling “significant parts” of Luhansk, an eastern city just 20 kilometers from the Russian border.

Hard-hit Luhansk has been without electricity, running water or phone connections for 18 days due to the fighting between government forces and pro-Russia separatists. Russia has sent a massive aid convoy to help the residents there but it is still stuck at the border, since it has not yet received Kiev’s approval because the proposed route lies through rebel-held territory.

Earlier in the day, Luhansk city authorities reported running battles between the two sides.

Ukrainian troops are trying to encircle Donetsk, the largest city still in rebel hands, and drive the rebels out of Luhansk. Several neighbourhoods in Donetsk have been hit with artillery fire in the last few days and fighting on the city’s outskirts has become more intense.

The Kiev-backed administration in Donetsk said 34 local residents were killed and 29 wounded in the last 24 hours as of noon on Wednesday.

Lysenko said nine troops were killed and 22 wounded in overnight fighting in Ilovaysk, a town near Donetsk, as the government sought to retake a major railroad and a highway that leads to Russia.

Lysenko said fighting continued on Wednesday in Ilovaysk even though government forces had gained overall control of the town.

Among those killed in Ilovaysk was a Ukrainian-American known by the nom de guerre of “Franko,” said Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to the interior minister. He said Franko was an American citizen with a military background who had been living in eastern Ukraine for 10 years and obtained Ukrainian citizenship before joining the government side.

For several weeks running, Donetsk has come under daily shelling attacks from all sides. The imprecision of the shelling is creating much animosity while seemingly taking a limited toll on rebel forces. On Wednesday morning, rockets slammed into residential areas, including the suburb of Makiivka. “I was with my grandmother in the bathroom, because there is a bearing wall in there,” said Anna Zyukova, 22. “And then all of sudden, bam-bam.”

Many Donetsk residents have been taking refuge in improvised bomb shelters in apartment building basements. Residents in Makiivka huddled in groups near one such shelter on Wednesday, chatting and listening as rockets flew in and out several miles away.

At a rebel camp closer to the fighting, a rebel commander who identified himself only as “Chaika” — Russian for seagull _ said he was at a loss to explain why army shells were hitting apartments. “We purposely don’t take up positions where people live,” he said — a claim that Ukrainian officials have repeatedly dismissed.

Ukraine has accused Russia of arming and supporting the rebels, a charge that Russia denies. The fighting began a month after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2014