(Reuters) – Ukrainian troops claimed on Thursday to have pushed forward in intense street fighting in the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk but said their only hope of turning the tide was more artillery to offset Russia’s massive firepower.

FIGHTING

* The battle for Sievierodonetsk is being waged house to house and at times under heavy Russian artillery barrages that endangered troops on both sides, the commander of Ukraine’s Svoboda (Freedom) National Guard battalion said.

* They (the Russians) are dying like flies … fierce fighting continues inside Sievierodonetsk,” said Luhansk governor Serhiy Gaidai in an online post. “The losses of the Russians far exceed ours.” Fighting was now taking place in the towns of Hirske and Popasnyanska, to the south of Sievierodonetsk, he said.

* The Ukrainian Defence Ministry said its forces had won back some territory from Russian forces in a counter-offensive in the Kherson area of southern Ukraine. Reuters was unable to independently verify the situation on the ground.

* Two Britons and a Moroccan captured while fighting for Ukraine were sentenced to death by a court in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), one of Russia’s proxies in eastern Ukraine, Russian news agencies reported. Their lawyer said they will appeal the decision.

* Western-supplied artillery systems are already making a difference on the ground for Ukraine and it is “just a question of time” before its forces win back significant ground in the south, the governor of the Mykolaiv region said.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* Russia may be getting more revenue from its fossil fuels now than shortly before its invasion of Ukraine, as global price increases offset the impact of Western efforts to restrict its sales, U.S. energy security envoy Amos Hochstein told lawmakers.

* The Kremlin said no agreement had been reached to sell grain from Ukraine to Turkey – which Ukraine says Russia has stolen from it – but that work on a deal was continuing. Moscow denies stealing the grain but the United States says there are credible reports that Russia is “pilfering” it.

* One of two breakaway eastern Ukrainian regions backed by Moscow on Thursday said it would soon start rail shipments to Russia of grain that its troops had “liberated”, Tass news agency reported.

* Millions of people may starve because of Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. The world, he said, faces a “terrible food crisis” with Ukraine unable to export large amounts of wheat, corn and oil.

POLITICS

Russian President Vladimir Putin paid tribute on Thursday to Tsar Peter the Great on the 350th anniversary of his birth, drawing a parallel between what he portrayed as their twin historic quests to win back Russian lands.

QUOTES

* “This is a very brutal battle, very tough, perhaps one of the most difficult throughout this war. Sievierodonetsk remains the epicentre of the encounter in Donbas…Largely, that is where the fate of our Donbas is being decided now.” -Zelenskiy

(Compiled by Mark Heinrich)