Following are updates from across the country: Severodonetsk: One of the last shelters of Ukraine in the Luhansk region, the city has collapsed due to heavy fighting. However, it remains unclear how many of the city’s invaders are now in control as fighting continues over the Azot industrial zone and the Bakhmut-Lysychansk highway. Meanwhile, Russian forces bombed neighboring cities that could supply Ukrainian troops. Elsewhere in Donbass: “Russia wants to destroy every city in Donbass,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday as fierce fighting continued. “Like Volnovakha, like Mariupol. “All these ruins in once happy cities, black traces of fires, craters from explosions – this is all that Russia can give to its neighbors, Europe and the world.” Images collected by the US satellite company Maxar Technologies show crater fields and entire city squares pulverized in Luhansk and Donetsk, where Russian attacks have been concentrated in recent weeks. In Rubizhne, right on the road from Severodonetsk, before and after photos show parts of the city in ruins. Kherson Ukraine said on Friday that Russian forces were strengthening their defenses after its troops launched a successful counterattack against Russian forces around Kherson and recaptured some of the previously lost territory in the southern region. The ISW said this week that Moscow was stepping up operations in part of the region following Ukrainian counterattacks. Mariupol: The Russian military is struggling to provide basic public services to civilians, according to the British Ministry of Defense. Residents do not have access to adequate social or medical services in the city, which is at risk of a major cholera epidemic. The cholera cases reported since May are particularly worrying as the medical system is said to be on the verge of collapse as a result of mismanagement by the Russian authorities, according to the ISW. Reis Thebault and Mary Ilyushina contributed to this report.
