Russia pours in more troops and presses attack in the east

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russia is attacking cities and towns in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland and pouring more forces into the country.

It intensified assaults along a front hundreds of miles long Tuesday in what officials on both sides described as a new phase of the war.

After a Russian push to overrun the capital failed, the Kremlin declared that its main goal was the capture of the eastern Donbas region.

Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces there for eight years.

If successful, that offensive would give President Vladimir Putin a vital piece of Ukraine and a badly needed victory in the now 7-week-old war.