Lugansk Oblast Governor Serhiy Gaidai said on Wednesday that the city of Lysychansk is under "enormous" shelling, which is making the evacuation of civilians difficult.

"Because the density of the fire is so high that we can put people in an evacuation bus and a terrible situation can happen. Therefore, we are very careful about this," Gaidai stated.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army said that Russian forces are trying to blockade Lysychansk in an effort to capture the city and Russian media reported that Ukrainian troops are trying to stop Moscow's offensive by mining fields around the city.